Speaker 1: He's the pride of Norwich, Connecticut and an adopted son
Speaker 1: of Salt Lake City. After forty years with the UTAZ,
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: Because the fans are used to coming to a game,
Speaker 2: no matter what it is, their son's high school game
Speaker 2: or the college game, whoever it is, and trying to
Speaker 2: watch your team put best its best foot forward to
Speaker 2: try and win the game you're playing. And the Jazz
Speaker 2: didn't do that this year. Obviously, they held out guys
Speaker 2: who were healthy. They got fined along the way by
Speaker 2: the NBA for doing that. It's just it's just not
Speaker 2: a very good look to me for any organization that
Speaker 2: puts themselves in that position.
Speaker 3: They're 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 balls come up and and and see
Speaker 2: how that that plays out for them.
Speaker 4: Some dynamite analysis, I'm not sure who that was. It
Speaker 4: soundedect Richard Smith, Well, May twelfth came and went yesterday,
Speaker 4: and the lottery balls did not fall in the favor
Speaker 4: of the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 3: Now, I will remind you the Jazz.
Speaker 4: Ended up with a pick that they were most likely
Speaker 4: to get based off the percentages, even though the reaction
Speaker 4: from folks around here is that the whole thing is
Speaker 4: rigged and the fixes in. But Richard Smith is live
Speaker 4: in studio during the four o'clock hour. My goodness, Smitty,
Speaker 4: one of the most truly one of the most consequential
Speaker 4: nights that the NBA has had in a long time
Speaker 4: for several reasons. But of course we'll start with your
Speaker 4: reaction to the Utah Jazz. I'll say, falling to five,
Speaker 4: they could not fall any further than five, but they
Speaker 4: fell as far as they could.
Speaker 3: Where you at with it today, Yeah, well that's that's.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's what the numbers of your mathematician, that's what
Speaker 2: you would expect, you know, would most probably happened. Of course,
Speaker 2: you and I have bantered about this all all season long, Spence,
Speaker 2: and and you were in the tank group. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just reviewing what the facts are. And
Speaker 2: you know, people can take it for what they will.
Speaker 2: You know, I've I've said all along and I'm not
Speaker 2: saying this in any way to pat myself on the
Speaker 2: back or anything, but I'm not just I just can't
Speaker 2: get on board with the whole idea that you try
Speaker 2: and manipulate the system, or, in my opinion the way
Speaker 2: I view it, you try and game the system to
Speaker 2: try and get an artificial advantage for something that's that's
Speaker 2: a professional sport where people are paid a lot of
Speaker 2: money and trained to try and perform at the highest
Speaker 2: level that they can night in, the night out, and
Speaker 2: the jazz obviously, you know, we're in a in a
Speaker 2: situation where they didn't play healthy players and they wanted
Speaker 2: to be in the position they were in last night,
Speaker 2: and then I don't know if it's karma, I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's you know, you the old Jerry Sloan
Speaker 2: saying that most of the time in life you get
Speaker 2: what you earn. And you know, but you know a
Speaker 2: part of me, you know, I feel bad because I'm
Speaker 2: a jazz guy, and uh, I want them to do well.
Speaker 2: And I have a lot of friends who still work
Speaker 2: there and and work hard and try and do the
Speaker 2: right thing and all that, but last night was was
Speaker 2: a telling tale that that you can't you know, just
Speaker 2: somehow manipulate these things to to put yourself in a
Speaker 2: in a winning advantage and and and some somewhere in
Speaker 2: that spence, for me on a personal level, it just
Speaker 2: feels like, you know, this is this is what happened
Speaker 2: can happen to you when you try and and and
Speaker 2: not do what most people would consider the right thing,
Speaker 2: or to do it to the best of your ability,
Speaker 2: and and then you get something like what happened last night.
Speaker 4: Well, and to your point, and maybe it's time to
Speaker 4: start thinking about this a little differently. My assertion, uh
Speaker 4: continues to be that the Utah Jazz have to find
Speaker 4: a franchise pillar that wants to stay here for a while.
Speaker 4: And if we're honest, we haven't had that since John
Speaker 4: and Carl. We thought we had it with Gordon, we
Speaker 4: thought we had it with Darren, we thought we had
Speaker 4: it with Donovan. How do they find that, smitty, Well,
Speaker 4: how do you do well? That's always a trick. And
Speaker 4: and and the NBA the way it's set up, spencing
Speaker 4: the collective Bargain Agreement, and and we've we've we've talked
Speaker 4: about this before and and Gordon Hayward and and uh
Speaker 4: is the perfect, a textbook example of how the system
Speaker 4: is set up to work. And that is that if
Speaker 4: you draft a guy and you develop him, and you
Speaker 4: like him, and he's your guy, you know, for the
Speaker 4: long term, at least that's what you plan for, the
Speaker 4: team has control of that player basically for the first
Speaker 4: half of their career. In other words, if you like
Speaker 4: him and he's developing the way you want and you're
Speaker 4: building with him or around him, and you want to
Speaker 4: keep him long term, the team has control of him
Speaker 4: for a minimum of seven years. In other words, you
Speaker 4: got the four year rookie contract, and then he becomes
Speaker 4: a restricted free agent, so you as a ball club
Speaker 4: have the right to match any outside offer he might
Speaker 4: get in order to retain him. So he doesn't have
Speaker 4: any say in reality about where he plays the first
Speaker 4: seven years of his contract. The back half of the contract.
Speaker 4: Now the player controls where he wants to go. And
Speaker 4: that's exactly what Gordon Hayward did.
Speaker 2: He was here seven years, he had the player option
Speaker 2: for the eighth year, he opted out. He got to
Speaker 2: choose where he wanted to go, and he went off
Speaker 2: to Boston and obviously then to Charlotte and and finished
Speaker 2: his career. Okay, see, but that's that's that's how it's
Speaker 2: set up to be. So, you know, a team like
Speaker 2: last night, you know, Dallas ends up winning the lottery
Speaker 2: a two percent chance to do it. That means they
Speaker 2: had basically two out of one hundred chants to get it,
Speaker 2: and they got it. And so okay, that's why, as
Speaker 2: I've heard you mentioned before, that's why they call it
Speaker 2: a lottery. And so they got the lottery ticket and
Speaker 2: they won it, and so Dallas will have the chance
Speaker 2: for the whoever they the presumptive number one pick. Everyone's
Speaker 2: assuming it's it's a Cooper flag. And if we make
Speaker 2: that assumption, they will have the control of a player
Speaker 2: like him for at least a minimum of seven years
Speaker 2: that they can plan on. And of course they try
Speaker 2: and get him in the system and get him to
Speaker 2: love them and blah blah blah, so that you end
Speaker 2: up with a you know, hopefully John Stockton or a
Speaker 2: Carl Malone type thing where you got the guy for
Speaker 2: fifteen or seventeen years or whatever. If it works out,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't. Usually it doesn't work out like that,
Speaker 2: It usually works against you. But one of the things
Speaker 2: I wanted to mention Spence along with that. I don't
Speaker 2: know how you felt about this, but I'm watching the
Speaker 2: program last night and I was I found myself somewhat
Speaker 2: offended by or embarrassed by the way the league had
Speaker 2: all these players at the at the at this lottery,
Speaker 2: all the so called top pick players, and they paraded
Speaker 2: them out, and they had some of them in interviews
Speaker 2: before Hey, what do you think about the lottery? What
Speaker 2: do you think the two kids from Rutgers? What do
Speaker 2: you think about this kid? What do you think about yourself?
Speaker 2: You know, you know whatever? And all I could think
Speaker 2: of the whole time was has any did anybody watch
Speaker 2: the NFL draft? Did anybody pay any attention to all
Speaker 2: the stuff that was going on with Shador Sanders And
Speaker 2: he's supposed to be a top five pick and he
Speaker 2: ends up going on the third day and how embarrassing
Speaker 2: that was for him and everybody else who was saying
Speaker 2: he's gonna be a top five guy. And hear the
Speaker 2: NBA of praying these guys. And now they bring Cooper
Speaker 2: fly to the to the table after the draft, and
Speaker 2: there every one of the guys on the table asked
Speaker 2: him a question directly about being a member of the
Speaker 2: Dallas Mavericks. And I'm sitting there going, did I miss something?
Speaker 3: Was the draft tonight? Because I thought the draft was
Speaker 3: in six weeks.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much that can happen between now
Speaker 2: and June twenty sixth. And we presume that they're gonna
Speaker 2: keep the pick. We presume they're gonna take Cooper fly,
Speaker 2: but a lot of things can happen.
Speaker 3: Spence.
Speaker 2: Item A on the table is Yiannis, and Gianna says,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe I'll look at some other stuff and whatever. Now, wow,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm surprised I didn't read anything today
Speaker 2: where anybody said, oh, would if you were put in
Speaker 2: the position, would you trade the number one pick right
Speaker 2: now for Giannis?
Speaker 3: Would you do that? As an organization?
Speaker 2: You know, Like, I'm surprised nobody said that, because you know,
Speaker 2: Yannis is a real guy. He's already proven he's a
Speaker 2: real guy, and he's in his prime. And you're telling me,
Speaker 2: you know, teams wouldn't look and go, well, wait a minute, now,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take an eighteen year old kid from
Speaker 2: college or I can have Yannis in his prime to
Speaker 2: go with my group because my job is to try
Speaker 2: and see if I can get us to a championship level.
Speaker 3: Like I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it's just that's an interesting question to me.
Speaker 2: But I even't heard that. And that's because everybody on
Speaker 2: the broadcast I was doing the whole broadcast aimed at
Speaker 2: Cooper Flag is number one, and he's going, whoever gets
Speaker 2: number one, and that's it, and we're all in on it,
Speaker 2: and his parents are there, and everybody's sitting there, and
Speaker 2: I'm going, does somebody have Deon Sanders number? Because somebody
Speaker 2: should call him and say, hey, how is this for
Speaker 2: you guys? When it didn't happen on the first day
Speaker 2: of the draft, and then it didn't happen on the
Speaker 2: second day of the I mean, I just thought that
Speaker 2: was I don't know.
Speaker 3: I know it's TV.
Speaker 2: I know they're they're they're doing it for TV, But
Speaker 2: I just I thought that was so egregious by the
Speaker 2: NBA making all these presumptions about what they think is
Speaker 2: already going to take place six weeks from now. For
Speaker 2: some reason, I just found that little a little distasteful.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a good angle to take because you've been
Speaker 4: part of rooms for a number of different years, namely
Speaker 4: for decades where you do have to make decisions, and
Speaker 4: sometimes the decisions you make are completely counter to what
Speaker 4: everyone on the on the outside looking in believes is
Speaker 4: going to happen.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: Tim McMahon, it was our guest last hour, wrote a
Speaker 4: piece for the dot com side. It also is ESPN,
Speaker 4: who's a partner with the NBA, of course, quoting Patrick
Speaker 4: Demond saying we're not trading one and we.
Speaker 3: Are taking Cooper flag.
Speaker 4: But the reason why I like this angle is, look, man,
Speaker 4: I can read all of the Jonathan Gavoni mock drafts
Speaker 4: I want, and I can read all the guys over
Speaker 4: at the Athletic do a really good job. You know,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of really good NBA writers who
Speaker 4: cover the draft and scouts who dig into this in
Speaker 4: a way that I just don't day to day because
Speaker 4: I have four hours of radio to do, so I
Speaker 4: do lean on them, and you know, ultimately, at least
Speaker 4: Gavoni has been very consistent that the order is Cooper flag.
Speaker 3: Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey and VJ.
Speaker 4: Edgecombe, and Gavoni's assertion is if you have one of
Speaker 4: the top four picks in this draft, you have a
Speaker 4: chance to draft a player that should be very special
Speaker 4: for you for a long time. But I feel like
Speaker 4: I hear that every year and there's a Kawhi mid
Speaker 4: first round or even Steph goes seven and Steph is generational.
Speaker 3: The best player in the world was the second round pick.
Speaker 4: So for the Chicken, little Crew and saw Lake that
Speaker 4: believe the sky is falling, help us understand why it
Speaker 4: might not be falling.
Speaker 3: Well, well, Spencer's a couple of things.
Speaker 2: One is the Jazz fell to number five, right, so
Speaker 2: they're gonna be you know, they have the fifth pick.
Speaker 2: And and that was also another thing. The the Assistant
Speaker 2: commission by Commissioner uh Mar Tatum Tatum sorry, he he
Speaker 2: kept fascilating back and forth when he was saying who
Speaker 2: the picks were by using the phrase, uh the the
Speaker 2: the number five pick will be taken by the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 2: And I kept thinking, well, you don't know if the
Speaker 2: Utah Jazz are gonna take number five, the the the
Speaker 2: number five pick will be going to the Utah Jazz.
Speaker 2: It should be the phrase and be kept going back
Speaker 2: and forth that you know a little semantic. That's that's
Speaker 2: what I spend my nights doing that, picking apart that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. But anyway, but but look at this,
Speaker 2: for example, Spence the most recent in the last decade,
Speaker 2: the number five picks in the draft going backwards, okay,
Speaker 2: starting last year. And you can tell me in need
Speaker 2: jerk reaction. You like him, you don't like him. They
Speaker 2: made it, they didn't make it, you know whatever. The
Speaker 2: thing is number five picks. Ron Holland in Detroit.
Speaker 3: Jerry is wildly still out on him.
Speaker 2: Sar Thompson love it Detroit, Jade and Ivy. Yeah, by
Speaker 2: the way, straight number five picks in Detroit and they
Speaker 2: were that's exactly right, That's exactly right. Jalen Suggs in
Speaker 2: Orlando mixed results isaka Carokay, Cleveland not great.
Speaker 4: Darius Garland like him, Trey Young. I don't like Trey
Speaker 4: as much as some people. I don't hate Trey as
Speaker 4: much as something the Aaron Fox, I'd say that's a
Speaker 4: win at five.
Speaker 2: Former jazz man Chris Dunn, probably not the pick you want.
Speaker 2: Mario Hiszonia, same thing, okay, Alex lenn this is not
Speaker 2: going well Smith, Thomas Robinson.
Speaker 3: When do we get to the Kevin Garnetts and the Trailers.
Speaker 2: Okay, the Marcus Cousins, Ricky Rubio, Okay. So the point being,
Speaker 2: you got some hits, you got some missus, Okay, at
Speaker 2: number five. That's what happens. Flip it around. Okay, we're
Speaker 2: watching the playoffs now right. Here's names for you of
Speaker 2: guys who are contributing, guys on playoff teams.
Speaker 3: That are still alive, which is what you want. Okay.
Speaker 2: These are the guys who are still helping to drive
Speaker 2: the bus at this point in time, the middle of May,
Speaker 2: in the NBA playoffs, and where they were taken in
Speaker 2: the draft. Jalen Brunson thirty three, YEP, Mikal Bridges ten,
Speaker 2: Peyton Pritchard twenty six, Max Struce undrafted, Podzemski nineteen, Jokic
Speaker 2: forty one, Rudy Gobert twenty seven, Jane McDaniels twenty eight,
Speaker 2: Josh Hart thirty, naz Reid undrafted. Point being what you
Speaker 2: can find players anywhere in the draft or even not
Speaker 2: in the draft, as we just said with Struce, naz Reid,
Speaker 2: and former jazz Man Wesley Matthews, who had a terrific
Speaker 2: career being undrafted. But as an organization, you have to
Speaker 2: you have to be able to find them. You have
Speaker 2: to evaluate them accurately, you have to value what they
Speaker 2: can bring to a team, and then you have to
Speaker 2: make an assessment if that, if that, adding a player
Speaker 2: like that to your group is going to make sense.
Speaker 2: So this whole thing, you know, last night, everybody's disappointed.
Speaker 3: I was disappointed. I get it.
Speaker 2: You know, people are jumping off the bridges and whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, because the Jazz didn't get the number one pick.
Speaker 2: But they going to get a good player if they
Speaker 2: evaluate accurately, and as always Spence, only time will tell that,
Speaker 2: but they will have the opportunity amongst a handful of
Speaker 2: players that they like and evaluate very critically to add
Speaker 2: someone to their group. They're also going to be picking
Speaker 2: twenty one from Minnesota. At least they have the twenty
Speaker 2: one pick. So you know, we just mentioned a bunch
Speaker 2: of guys who were picked after twenty one. Jalen Brunson, Prichard, Struce, Jokic,
Speaker 2: Rudy McDaniels, Josh Hart, Nazreid. All those guys went after
Speaker 2: twenty one. Right, So the point, my belabored point, is
Speaker 2: you can find guys, and you can find more than
Speaker 2: one guy that can actually help and add to your
Speaker 2: group and what you're trying to do. But you have
Speaker 2: to evaluate that in the right frame, and you have
Speaker 2: to be able to have a group that believes in
Speaker 2: what they're doing and be able to go go find
Speaker 2: those guys and how to procure them. And that's gonna
Speaker 2: be the interesting part over the next six week process
Speaker 2: between now and June twenty six, which is the draft day.
Speaker 4: Tim McMahon is on TV. He was just on our
Speaker 4: show fifteen minutes ago. Look at that, all right, McMahon.
Speaker 2: See see everybody tries to use you, Spence as the
Speaker 2: stepping starts. True, they come here, true, and then boom
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes later.
Speaker 3: Don t you won't see me doing that? Spence?
Speaker 4: No, I appreciate with you. I appreciate with you. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Porter's using me as a step in, so I know this.
Speaker 2: I'm riding with you. I don't just run to eat.
Speaker 2: Oh did you say yes fans?
Speaker 3: Spence? Sorry, I gotta go.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes fans on the final I know you're lied
Speaker 4: to be all right, at the risk of insulting your intelligence,
Speaker 4: here we go only because you worked in the league
Speaker 4: for forty years. Let me put the caveat on the
Speaker 4: question before I ask you, yes that no party me
Speaker 4: believes any of this stuff is ripped, never have, never will.
Speaker 4: But it is a rite of passage for NBA fans
Speaker 4: this time of year.
Speaker 3: Who is there?
Speaker 4: Who are fans of a certain team that they received
Speaker 4: to be that they perceive got screwed, right, So it
Speaker 4: it ultimately depends on who you cheer for. There are
Speaker 4: no Dallas Maverick fans today that believe the lottery is rigged.
Speaker 4: They just believe they got lucky. San Antonio just wants
Speaker 4: the lottery to continue because you know they they built
Speaker 4: the dynasties on lottery luck.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: And by the way, non secuitor, if there is an
Speaker 4: example that the lottery isn't rigged, it's that San Antonio,
Speaker 4: Texas has been the biggest beneficiar ever. Okay, yes, But
Speaker 4: for the jazz fan listeners today, that's say little Salt
Speaker 4: Lake City Jazz moved down last year, the jazz moved
Speaker 4: down this year. Ten lottery appearances. We've never moved up.
Speaker 4: The fix is in what do you say to them?
Speaker 2: It's well, it's insulting anybody's intelligence. I know you know
Speaker 2: about the I mean, but look, you know people want
Speaker 2: to and I think you're right. I heard you earlier
Speaker 2: say something about you know, we always want to blame
Speaker 2: somebody else. You know, this is this is the Trump's
Speaker 2: n b A, if you will, right, Like, it didn't
Speaker 2: go your way, so we got to find somebody else.
Speaker 3: To blame, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know, which is obviously ridiculous. I know
Speaker 2: you had I know you had Andy Larson on the
Speaker 2: last hour, and and he was in the room and
Speaker 2: and he saw the pingbound balls and and I saw
Speaker 2: a fascinating article. Someone who else was also in the
Speaker 2: room wrote wrote a piece. It might have been Andy,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that I wrote read late last night
Speaker 2: about exactly how the balls came up they were it wasn't, yeah,
Speaker 2: and and recounting how the numbers were and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, and and uh, you know, look that
Speaker 2: that's why it's a lot of this this stuff happens.
Speaker 2: You know there the jazz just didn't get lucky. You
Speaker 2: you know, you work all year to try and get that.
Speaker 2: And look, Spencer, we've talked about this and and I
Speaker 2: use this example with you you know a while ago
Speaker 2: on this show, I don't know who else would would
Speaker 2: take a fourteen percent chance and put all their chips
Speaker 2: in the middle of the table.
Speaker 3: You don't go in.
Speaker 2: You don't go into Caesar's palace and they say, hey, hey,
Speaker 2: come on over to the table here, son, We're going
Speaker 2: to give you a fourteen percent chance to win some
Speaker 2: big money tonight. You go, wow, what table is that?
Speaker 2: I want to go to that table? Like, you know,
Speaker 2: nobody does that. I mean, so so, you know, And
Speaker 2: then I read with Justin Zanik, you know, said after
Speaker 2: the draft, you know, we knew going in that, you know,
Speaker 2: we had a fourteen percent chance to get the thing,
Speaker 2: which meant we were also having eighty six percent chance
Speaker 2: not to get it, and we're prepared for this. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if I'm sure they knew that. Obviously they
Speaker 2: know all those kinds of things, but I think everybody
Speaker 2: was hoping against hope that this would happen for them. Hey,
Speaker 2: the people in Washington were doing the exact same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they had the one game better than the Jazz on
Speaker 2: the last second shot in the last game of the season,
Speaker 2: and they had a fourteen percent chance and they went
Speaker 2: from possibly one to six, the Jazz went from possibly
Speaker 2: one to five. Yeah, and Charlotte dropped the spot. So
Speaker 2: Pelicans dropped to seven. Yes, they dropped two. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: so you know, that's just what the lottery is. It
Speaker 2: made for great TV for half an hour, okay. But
Speaker 2: but the interesting thing is that great TV for half
Speaker 2: an hour quickly turned the fortunes of one group, which
Speaker 2: was the Dallas Mavericks, into a big plus.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: They sent people like the Washington Wizards a group and
Speaker 2: the Utah Jazz Group going out the side door with
Speaker 2: their heads hung low because they're all disappointed because they
Speaker 2: were hoping against hope that that this would this would
Speaker 2: work out for them and it didn't. And you know, I,
Speaker 2: as we've we've talked about before, Spence, it's I don't
Speaker 2: get it. That's just me. I did these things for
Speaker 2: a lot of years. I was in these draft rooms.
Speaker 2: I was, you know, in discussions with how we're gonna
Speaker 2: move up and down and out and in and all
Speaker 2: this stuff. And you know the fact that you spend
Speaker 2: a whole year positioning yourself purposely to be in a
Speaker 2: spot where you are going to the the poker table,
Speaker 2: You're going to the blackjack table and they're telling you, hey,
Speaker 2: for all of your effort and all of your harder
Speaker 2: and money, son, we're gonna give you a fourteen percent
Speaker 2: chance to win tonight. Sit right down, we're gonna get
Speaker 2: your ginger ale and here we go.
Speaker 3: And like, who would do that? Like, I just don't
Speaker 3: get it.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately it didn't work out for the Jazz And
Speaker 2: now they're they're trying to regroup. They're gonna get a
Speaker 2: good player at five. They're not gonna get a Cooper Flag.
Speaker 2: They're not gonna get a Dylan Harper, all right, but
Speaker 2: they're gonna get a good player unless they come up
Speaker 2: with something else. There's a lot of things that can
Speaker 2: happen between now and the draft day. They got six
Speaker 2: weeks to try and move up if that's what they
Speaker 2: want to do. Put a package together with another team,
Speaker 2: work with three teams, you know, move the balls around,
Speaker 2: do something, you know, to position themselves differently, if that's
Speaker 2: the way they see it. Danny Ainge has been known
Speaker 2: to do that in the past, and so he may
Speaker 2: have some ideas about, you know, how to be able
Speaker 2: to work this in his in his favor to the
Speaker 2: to the Jazz's benefit. And only time will tell, but
Speaker 2: it certainly puts them, you know, behind a bigger ball,
Speaker 2: if you will, in the next six weeks, then they
Speaker 2: would have been if they had come out, you know,
Speaker 2: with what they what they deemed to be the top prize.
Speaker 4: All right, before we catch a break, one more question
Speaker 4: here come up next, we'll talk about some of the optionality,
Speaker 4: which is the buzzword in pro basketball. The Jazz do
Speaker 4: have with Giannis reportedly open to being traded and the
Speaker 4: Jason Tatum news that the Achilles is ruptured. Does Boston
Speaker 4: try to pivot move on? Could the Jazz get involved
Speaker 4: in any of these discussions to maybe expedi the process
Speaker 4: a little bit, or will next year look a lot
Speaker 4: like this year did?
Speaker 3: But before we catch break, and I don't know this,
Speaker 3: but in order to be.
Speaker 4: Fair, and yes, I cannot debate or argue with you
Speaker 4: my opinion of what I thought the Jazz should do
Speaker 4: right out of the gates when they traded Donovan and Rudy.
Speaker 4: If that was your decision to jettison Donovan, Rudy, Bogdanovich,
Speaker 4: Conley O'Neil, the whole group in Quinn, Leaves and Dennis leaves.
Speaker 4: My opinion was you do have to go all in
Speaker 4: in one direction or the other. That's my opinion, okay,
Speaker 4: and I will not change that opinion. But based off
Speaker 4: of what they elected to do this year, is it
Speaker 4: only fair to assume that they did try to get
Speaker 4: a mchel Bridges or a Paul George or whatever it
Speaker 4: was last offseason, and when their best laid plans disintegrated,
Speaker 4: this was kind of their only course.
Speaker 3: Is that fair to assume? I don't know. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that.
Speaker 2: You know, you're always trying to find a quicker way
Speaker 2: to get on the on the in the fast lane
Speaker 2: on the highway, right, so so you're always trying to
Speaker 2: improve your team. You know, there's no such thing as
Speaker 2: a six year, a seven year and eight year you know,
Speaker 2: rebuilding a time frame. Nobody puts an artificial time limit
Speaker 2: on how long this is supposed to take. Because in
Speaker 2: a perfect world, something would happen for you tomorrow that
Speaker 2: would make you go from you know, the seven Celtics
Speaker 2: to the eight Celtics, right from near the bottom of
Speaker 2: the league to winning a championship in one year because
Speaker 2: of some moves that you're able to make. That was
Speaker 2: a Danny Ainge deal where he was able to parlay,
Speaker 2: you know, a disappointment where he felt like they were
Speaker 2: hoping to get the top pick. They were hoping to
Speaker 2: get the second pick at that at that year, which
Speaker 2: happened to be the Greg Odin Kevin Durant draft.
Speaker 3: They didn't.
Speaker 2: They moved, They move move down like the Jazz did
Speaker 2: last night, ended up moving back to five. They didn't
Speaker 2: like that spot in the draft. Danny Ainge was able
Speaker 2: to move that pick to end up getting Ray Allen
Speaker 2: to come from Seattle, and then in a different move,
Speaker 2: was able to move some picks, move some other guys
Speaker 2: to Minnesota to get Kevin Garnett, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you've got Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce and
Speaker 2: you go from being a bottom five team in the
Speaker 2: league to winning the championship twelve months later. So everybody
Speaker 2: wants to do that type of thing. The Jazz, what
Speaker 2: they have done successfully to this point is they put
Speaker 2: themselves in a position, as you mentioned a minute ago,
Speaker 2: you know the favorite word optionality or flexibility, to be
Speaker 2: able to do a number of different things depending on
Speaker 2: what's presented to you. Forty eight hours ago, you would
Speaker 2: have never thought there was anything that could ever, you know,
Speaker 2: impermeate the Boston Celtics roster, right because they've got a
Speaker 2: good group.
Speaker 3: It's a high paid group.
Speaker 2: It costs a lot of money, but they're a top
Speaker 2: five NBA team, the reigning champions, you know, and all
Speaker 2: of that. Now Jason Tatum goes out as a ruptured
Speaker 2: Achilles more than likely, you know, most estimations are that
Speaker 2: he more than likely missed the whole of next year.
Speaker 2: So that puts a big hole there where he's out.
Speaker 2: So now you're paying a lot of money to a
Speaker 2: lot of guys, and how much does that damage what
Speaker 2: you've planned to do because he's.
Speaker 3: In his prime.
Speaker 2: So now do you just wait it out if you're
Speaker 2: the Celtics, or do you say, well, we can't do this.
Speaker 2: They got a new ownership group in place, and it's
Speaker 2: costing him a lot of money and salaries, luxury tax
Speaker 2: and penalties. So do they look at it and go, well,
Speaker 2: we may have to do something different, and so maybe
Speaker 2: we get rid of Jalen Brown, and maybe we get
Speaker 2: rid of Drew Holliday, and maybe we get rid of
Speaker 2: you know, whatever it is, because we can't sit around
Speaker 2: and just wait and hope Tatum comes back to be
Speaker 2: the old Tatum that he was. Yep, And so that
Speaker 2: becomes something on the table. So now the Jazz are
Speaker 2: sitting there at the bus stop, so to speak, with
Speaker 2: a big basket of draft picks and players that they're
Speaker 2: willing to trade because they don't care because at the moment,
Speaker 2: you know, the guys they've got, whether they like him,
Speaker 2: they don't like them, or they're in the middle or
Speaker 2: something on their own guys, you know, they're not winning,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't matter. So everybody's in play. So whether
Speaker 2: it's your players or your your treasure trove of picks,
Speaker 2: you you are in a position to go to Boston
Speaker 2: and say, what are you thinking? I don't know, we
Speaker 2: probably got to do something with Jalen Brown. Okay, what's
Speaker 2: gonna take? You know, five draft picks, Lowry Marketing and
Speaker 2: this guy or that guy whatever, and so you're in
Speaker 2: position to pounce on something like that.
Speaker 3: Is it something like that that may come up? We
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 2: Is it something like Phoenix, which is around the corner
Speaker 2: that probably has to do something with Durant and Beale
Speaker 2: in some way, shape or form. Because that's obviously not working.
Speaker 2: Is it something that involves Giannis who wants to go
Speaker 2: somewhere else And it may not be the Jazz, but
Speaker 2: the Jazz may be a third team that helps something
Speaker 2: getting involved. All of those things are in play spence.
Speaker 2: So so that's the one thing that Jazz have going
Speaker 2: for them is they've got a lot of open doors
Speaker 2: that they could walk through depending on what presents itself
Speaker 2: to them in the coming weeks.
Speaker 4: The world of professional golf turns its side of the
Speaker 4: PGA Championship at Quel Hollow coming up this weekend. One
Speaker 4: year ago today, well not one year go today, but
Speaker 4: one year ago. Smidty PGA Championship Scotti Scheffler arrested prior
Speaker 4: to round two, which was just so wild.
Speaker 3: Richard Smith is live in studio.
Speaker 4: Jordan Speith going for the career Grand Slam coming up
Speaker 4: this weekend after Rory McElroy was able to grab it
Speaker 4: with his green jacket.
Speaker 3: All right, Smitty.
Speaker 4: Of course, the big news of the day today that
Speaker 4: we've been dissecting so far as the Utah Jazz will
Speaker 4: draft number five in the upcoming NBA Draft down June,
Speaker 4: the twenty fifth Shamsherarnia reporting that the Jazz will try
Speaker 4: to be very active to move up in seid NBA drafts.
Speaker 4: I've had a lot of friends reach Alie, Hey, can
Speaker 4: they just move up and draft Cooper Flag at one.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, you have to have the other general
Speaker 4: manager agreed to the deal.
Speaker 3: In place, Like, yes, in theory, just do that.
Speaker 4: But what are what are the conversations like when it's like,
Speaker 4: all right, we like this guy at three, but we're
Speaker 4: at five. Can we get to three? Or we kind
Speaker 4: of like the guy that might be at seven. Can
Speaker 4: we move down to seven and grab a couple of
Speaker 4: other assets? Like what does that sound like?
Speaker 2: Well, it reminds me suspense you say that about just
Speaker 2: moving up, you know. Frank Laydon said he one time
Speaker 2: got a call from someone who a very influential person
Speaker 2: in the community, said, hey, Hi, that's great. I do
Speaker 2: we have a good young team with that Stockton kid
Speaker 2: and the Malone guy. You know, you know would be
Speaker 2: really good with them, would be uh, would be Patrick Ewing.
Speaker 2: You know you guys should get Patrick Ewing. And Frank said, really,
Speaker 2: he goes, that's that's a good idea. He goes, Now,
Speaker 2: how do you suggest we do that, Well, you just
Speaker 2: call call New York, you know, and and they're going
Speaker 2: to give us Patrick Ewing, He goes like he's.
Speaker 4: You guys like Rich Key, Yeah, that's Rich Kelly in
Speaker 4: his second for Patrick Man shout out.
Speaker 3: To Rich Kelly. Uh, that's one of my guys, Rich Kelly.
Speaker 4: Yes, So Smittie, I mean ultimately, uh, if I just
Speaker 4: asked you for your best guess as far as what
Speaker 4: next year is going to look like, because you know again,
Speaker 4: Adam Silver and the NBA in twenty nineteen decided to
Speaker 4: flatten the lottery odds and was their motivation to dissuade
Speaker 4: teams from tanking. Probably they also put some financial things
Speaker 4: into place that make your overspending very punitive. So great
Speaker 4: teams like the Nuggets we've seen lose some players. The
Speaker 4: Warriors had to make a decision on Clay Phoenix as
Speaker 4: you referenced. Boston as we've talked about, well maybe jettison
Speaker 4: off from some of their talent players. Do the Jazz
Speaker 4: have what it takes to potentially do what Danny Ainge
Speaker 4: said two summers ago and go big game hunting to
Speaker 4: get some good players. So therefore, next year you're not
Speaker 4: insulting the integrity of the game by intentionally losing every night.
Speaker 4: And as you said earlier, fate karma.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know nothing about nothing. Is
Speaker 3: that stuff real?
Speaker 4: Maybe, but twenty nineteen lottery odds flattened. Six drafts later,
Speaker 4: the worst team in the NBA has not received the
Speaker 4: number one pick since. So just best guess what do
Speaker 4: you think the offseason and what do you think next
Speaker 4: season looks like for Jazz fans?
Speaker 2: Well, again, I think the Jazz have a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff they they can propose, you know, to uh again
Speaker 2: to beat the dead horse, you know, uh Danny's famous comment.
Speaker 2: But we're gonna go big game hunting. And and we've
Speaker 2: said this before, Spence, you can go big game hunting.
Speaker 3: You can.
Speaker 2: You can tell your wife on Friday, Hey, I'm going
Speaker 2: up in the mountains and I'm gonna get a bag
Speaker 2: of big, big buck and I'm gonna bring it back and.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have deer meat all winter or whatever.
Speaker 2: And you go up and you come back at the
Speaker 2: end of the weekend and you have nothing, and your wife,
Speaker 2: I thought you were going I thought you were going
Speaker 2: big game. Well I did, and where's the big game.
Speaker 2: I didn't get him. You didn't see him. I saw him,
Speaker 2: but I didn't get them, you know, and whatever I mean.
Speaker 2: That's you know, the Jazz are gonna do that. They're
Speaker 2: gonna do a version of that. Uh this spring and summer.
Speaker 2: They're gonna try and do a lot of different things
Speaker 2: that can improve their team quickly. Uh, They're gonna have
Speaker 2: some some opportunity used to look at stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: you always need a trade partner, You need someone who
Speaker 2: has sometimes a different motivation than you. So it may
Speaker 2: be a team that is trying to get out from
Speaker 2: a high paid player who's a good player, but it
Speaker 2: just isn't working, I e.
Speaker 3: The Phoenix Suns.
Speaker 2: It may be something, you know, where a top line
Speaker 2: player just needs a change of scenery and the team
Speaker 2: that has him under contract feels like they need a
Speaker 2: change of scenery because it just isn't working the way
Speaker 2: they thought, I e.
Speaker 3: Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: It could be you know, from a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: you know when the Brooklyn Nets looked like they were
Speaker 2: going to be running the NBA for five, six, seven
Speaker 2: years with Durant and Harden and Kyrie Irving and those
Speaker 2: three guys played a total of sixteen games together during
Speaker 2: their time in Brooklyn, which is unfathomable now when you
Speaker 2: look back on it, and it just didn't work. And
Speaker 2: so they were trying to get rid of each one
Speaker 2: of those guys in different different fashion. So those kinds
Speaker 2: of things can come up. You don't know tomorrow if
Speaker 2: they're gonna happen. You don't know next week if it's
Speaker 2: gonna happen. But if you're prepared to be able to react,
Speaker 2: you might have some stuff you might be able to do.
Speaker 2: You couple it with a draft pick, with two draft picks,
Speaker 2: with one of your guys, with three of your guys,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, and you can make over your team
Speaker 2: somewhat quickly, as we mentioned earlier what Danny Ainge did
Speaker 2: in seven the Summer of seven with the Boston Celtics.
Speaker 2: But a lot of things have to fall into place.
Speaker 2: But the situation the Jazz are in now, as much
Speaker 2: as you don't like the way they lost and the
Speaker 2: way they were the worst team in this year, and
Speaker 2: a lot of metrics and a lot of the analytics
Speaker 2: said that they were really bad. So from the Jazz perspective,
Speaker 2: in that regard, you don't have anything to lose, like
Speaker 2: you're not giving up something that Ooh, I don't know
Speaker 2: if we can give away this, because that may damage
Speaker 2: what we've been doing so far, because we haven't done
Speaker 2: anything so far. So in that regard, you know, the
Speaker 2: door's wide open, and they could do a lot of things,
Speaker 2: and a lot of things would have to fall their
Speaker 2: way and would have to some things within their ability
Speaker 2: to control, they could do that. There's some things that
Speaker 2: may have to just fall in their lap that are
Speaker 2: beyond their control, that just happened to them or become
Speaker 2: present to them to take advantage of. But those are
Speaker 2: all things that they're going to look at and all
Speaker 2: things that Danny Inge has used to doing and has
Speaker 2: done before and has shown that he's not shy about
Speaker 2: making those kinds of decisions. And we just see it
Speaker 2: here spends the Jazz and the situation they are in
Speaker 2: now because Danny Hinge came in in the first twelve
Speaker 2: months he was on the job with the Jazz, you know,
Speaker 2: jettisoned the whole thing that that was in place then
Speaker 2: and decided to start over. So we know that he
Speaker 2: has he has the uh, the intestinal fortitude and the
Speaker 2: guts to make those kind of decisions and not blink
Speaker 2: and so so, will he have opportunities, will they be
Speaker 2: able to execute them?
Speaker 3: Will there be things that that he.
Speaker 2: Uh, he can act upon but needs other people to cooperate.
Speaker 2: All those things are movable parts, and those are those
Speaker 2: are the things that become exciting and at the same
Speaker 2: time become frustrating when you're trying to get something done.
Speaker 3: So do you think next year will look a lot
Speaker 3: like this season did? Well? I think it.
Speaker 2: I think they're going to try and make it look
Speaker 2: a lot different in terms of making some moves. Whether
Speaker 2: it's a draft, whether it's a free agent thing, whether
Speaker 2: it's trades, Whether they get stuff done on any of
Speaker 2: those fronts or all of them, remains to be seen.
Speaker 2: And I but I think, you know, if they just
Speaker 2: if they don't get anything done and they just go
Speaker 2: through this draft and and and pick whoever they get
Speaker 2: and try and develop them, then I think they could
Speaker 2: be in for another type of season next year because
Speaker 2: that they've had this year.
Speaker 3: Because Spence, to your.
Speaker 2: Point earlier, everybody in the NBA is looking to be
Speaker 2: one of the top five teams in the league that
Speaker 2: has a serious chance of competing all year long and
Speaker 2: through the playoffs, or you want to be one of
Speaker 2: the five worst teams to have a chance like last night, Okay,
Speaker 2: they did that part didn't work out. Okay, that's one
Speaker 2: big swing and mess. Okay, that happened. But you don't
Speaker 2: want to be one of the one of the twenty
Speaker 2: teams that's in between those two areas what we always
Speaker 2: would refer to with the gray area, because those are
Speaker 2: the teams that either they're fooling themselves because they're a
Speaker 2: eight nine to ten type team, or they're a twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one to twenty two type team and they want
Speaker 2: to convince themselves that they're better than they really are
Speaker 2: and they have a chance to compete when they really don't.
Speaker 2: You know. The current example of that to me is
Speaker 2: somebody like the Atlanta Hawks, who you know, maybe the
Speaker 2: Miami Heat, although the Heat broke through a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago and and you know, got to the finals
Speaker 2: and you know, but they had some breaks to get
Speaker 2: through that, but it worked. But sometimes you can fool
Speaker 2: yourself into thinking you're one of those guys. You don't
Speaker 2: want to be in that gray area because you're just
Speaker 2: trading water. So if you can make some moves. Then
Speaker 2: you look at that with a strong eye to try
Speaker 2: and get better quickly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the irony in what you're saying is the number
Speaker 4: ten team in the Western Conference here this year was
Speaker 4: the Dallas Mavericks, who now owned the number one overall tip.
Speaker 4: There you go, and so you know now that we have,
Speaker 4: you know, after they flattened the lottery odds in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people said, Okay, well, let's
Speaker 4: wait and see how this looks. And now that we
Speaker 4: have six drafts in six lotteries behind us, and the
Speaker 4: data now says tanking does not guarantee you anything.
Speaker 3: In the NFL, it does, Okay, it's inverse order. Period.
Speaker 3: They reward teams that are horrible.
Speaker 4: Ironically enough, teams like my Jets do not seem to
Speaker 4: ever find their way out.
Speaker 3: Of that group.
Speaker 4: But in pro basketball, the data is in that you
Speaker 4: can tank all you want, and if you think that's
Speaker 4: the right way to roll, then you can roll that way.
Speaker 4: And yes, your percentages are slightly higher than the teams
Speaker 4: behind you. But now that we know that guarantees nothing,
Speaker 4: is it time to maybe consider a paradigm shift for
Speaker 4: the teams like the Jazz or Washington or whoever that
Speaker 4: clearly have been unseerious about winning.
Speaker 3: Now for a minute, well, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know the lottery, I think, I mean, I understand
Speaker 2: what you're saying about.
Speaker 3: You know, now we have six years, we can look
Speaker 3: at it a little bit.
Speaker 2: But the lottery, I know this sounds kind of simplistic,
Speaker 2: but the lottery is the lottery. In other words, you
Speaker 2: can't predict what's going to happen. So anybody who wants
Speaker 2: to play that game, like the Jazz did this year again,
Speaker 2: spence to be the dead horse.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Anybody who works that hard for six months to get
Speaker 2: a fourteen percent chance to win something, I mean, good
Speaker 2: luck to you. I mean, you know, that's that's uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know that. I don't get that
Speaker 2: whole thing. But anyway, that's that's what they did. That's
Speaker 2: what Washington did, That's what Charlotte did. Toward the end
Speaker 2: of the year. None of them ended up in the
Speaker 2: top three. You know, That's that's just the way that
Speaker 2: that stuff it goes. That's that's, you know, just taking
Speaker 2: a big gamble. The NFL. The NFL is a different
Speaker 2: animal because they they schedule differently. You don't play everybody
Speaker 2: else in the NFL over over a whole season, and
Speaker 2: the NFL schedule is weighted so that the better teams
Speaker 2: last year play each other next year, and the lesser
Speaker 2: teams last year play each other this year. And it's
Speaker 2: all in the hopes Spence, that when you get to
Speaker 2: week sixteen and seventeen in the NFL, everybody's eight and eighty,
Speaker 2: everybody's nine and seven, everybody's got a chance. The last
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. In the NBA, everybody plays everybody else.
Speaker 2: In your conference, you play four games. A couple of
Speaker 2: teams of three games, but most of them you're playing
Speaker 2: two at home, two in the road, and the other
Speaker 2: conference you play one home, one on the road.
Speaker 3: And so over the course of an eighty two game.
Speaker 2: Season, it usually works out that the better teams are
Speaker 2: the better teams. And you know, when you get to
Speaker 2: this lottery stuff, that's just what it is. And I
Speaker 2: don't understand people who you know, don't. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: not that complicated, Spence. It's just like going to the playground,
Speaker 2: like the hard scrabbles streets that you grew up in
Speaker 2: a New Canaan.
Speaker 3: There we go see that.
Speaker 2: And you guys, you get to the playground and you go, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, Spencer Smidder, you guys are choosing up. Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: I got first pick. Who are you gonna take. You're
Speaker 2: gonna take the kid you know is the best player
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood, and then you're going to take the
Speaker 2: next guy and whatever. And the whole purpose is what
Speaker 2: the whole purpose is to win the game you're playing,
Speaker 2: so you get to stay on the court and the
Speaker 2: losers have to go off and play the next group
Speaker 2: of guys. Right, the NBA system in the playoffs, it's
Speaker 2: it's just a bigger, grandiose version of that. All the
Speaker 2: teams are trying to get the better players so they
Speaker 2: can stay on the court and keep playing. Right, So
Speaker 2: when it comes to the lottery, the lottery is what
Speaker 2: it is. It's just a flip of the coin, or
Speaker 2: in this case, literally the bounce of the ping pong balls.
Speaker 2: And I was interested to read Andy Larson's description last night,
Speaker 2: specifically saying, you know, they they turned the machine on
Speaker 2: and the balls bounce around for twenty seconds, and then
Speaker 2: the guy pulls the plug and the ball comes out
Speaker 2: and then they reset it and then the balls bounce
Speaker 2: around for another ten seconds and then bah blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. And you know, and it's very precise and
Speaker 2: direct in how they do that to give everybody a
Speaker 2: fair shot. And you know, I would rather be in
Speaker 2: a lottery spence where I have an eighty six percent
Speaker 2: chance of getting it, but you have an eighty six
Speaker 2: percent chance of not getting it. So that's what you're
Speaker 2: rolling with. I say, good luck, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: keep my money in my back pocket.
Speaker 4: And the system is not changing anytime soon. Do you
Speaker 4: think they look at it? I mean, would you like
Speaker 4: to see a different approach?
Speaker 2: I mean no, because I think they I think they've
Speaker 2: I think they've not overthought. I think they've thought it
Speaker 2: through enough with enough statisticians and mathematicians and and what
Speaker 2: are the odds? And how do you do this? And
Speaker 2: there used to be one ping pong ball and fourteen
Speaker 2: teams and they ruffled it up and they go okay,
Speaker 2: and they pull out one ball and they go, uh,
Speaker 2: number five, who's got number five? Oh, the Atlanta Hawks
Speaker 2: have number five? Okay, they get the first pick. I
Speaker 2: mean it used to be that now that's four ping
Speaker 2: pong balls. And they each have a number on them.
Speaker 2: So they get them one number okay, and number seven okay,
Speaker 2: all right, the next one number thirteen, whatever. And then
Speaker 2: they then you have a big, you know, print out
Speaker 2: sheet and you look at okay, do we have lottery number.
Speaker 2: It's just like Spence buying a lottery ticket over across
Speaker 2: the border in Idaho, and you got the numbers on
Speaker 2: the ticket and they read off the fourth number.
Speaker 3: Ah, I had a seven. They call those six. I
Speaker 3: didn't win it. You know. It's the same thing. I mean.
Speaker 2: And and so they've got that figured out. It just
Speaker 2: doesn't work for you. And to your point, Spence, everybody
Speaker 2: wants to find a reason that we didn't win and
Speaker 2: somebody's against us, and you know whatever, and that's just
Speaker 2: it's just not the case.
Speaker 3: It's just that's the reality of what a lottery is.
Speaker 4: And I think, well, my guess is the other thing
Speaker 4: that really stings about last night? And John Hollinger wrote
Speaker 4: a piece on this for The Athletic Today. So again
Speaker 4: the jazz fault, I'm gonna say air quotes fall to five.
Speaker 4: It was the most likely scenario based off the percentages
Speaker 4: prior to the Lotteryka and Zanak talked about this, Yeah,
Speaker 4: one and two.
Speaker 3: It was basically a fifty percent change, right.
Speaker 4: Right, right, So forty eight point seven percent chance they
Speaker 4: were gonna draft at five fourteen percent chance they were
Speaker 4: gonna draft it one. But I don't think the sting
Speaker 4: that fans are feeling today is only about that. I
Speaker 4: think it's also about the fact that Dallas and San Antonio,
Speaker 4: two of your Western Conference piers, are at one and two.
Speaker 4: Because if you're a Jazz fan, you're already looking up
Speaker 4: at well, I'm not even gonna read the list everybody,
Speaker 4: You're already looking up at everybody. At least san Antonio
Speaker 4: was kind of in your cul de sac right this year,
Speaker 4: even though they got Wembin Yama and Dallas took such
Speaker 4: such a calculator risk to get rid of Donchic, so
Speaker 4: you thought, okay, maybe they're falling back down on.
Speaker 3: Earth as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so now two of the teams that you thought
Speaker 4: maybe we're not that far away from, you're miles away
Speaker 4: from again. So I think if you're a Jazz fan today,
Speaker 4: it's not just man, we didn't get one or two.
Speaker 4: We actually are drafting five it's two of our Western
Speaker 4: Conference piers have one and two, and now we've got
Speaker 4: miles to go to catch them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and the fact that their Western conference
Speaker 2: is a good point. But but you're right when when
Speaker 2: they when they showed Ashley Smith, who I felt on
Speaker 2: the stage and and her being in that position and
Speaker 2: she's on an island by herself at that moment in time,
Speaker 2: and and not used to that that scenario and everything, and.
Speaker 4: Look on her face. I just want to reach the TV. Yeah,
Speaker 4: felt really bad for her.
Speaker 2: And and uh, but then they but then they exacerbated
Speaker 2: by going and now we're gonna go to commercial and
Speaker 2: we'll come back for the final four picks, and they
Speaker 2: go to a three minute commercial and they rearrange the
Speaker 2: stage and all that stuff, and and uh and when
Speaker 2: when they when they picked the Charlotte at at four
Speaker 2: And then I'm sitting there going, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: San Antonio and Dallas and and then and then those
Speaker 2: two are left, and I go and I literally I
Speaker 2: I started laughing a little bit out loud. I was
Speaker 2: watching with coach coach Layton and and and with Linda
Speaker 2: and and I'm sitting there. You gotta be kidding me,
Speaker 2: I said, And then at that moment in time, I thought, boy,
Speaker 2: I hope san Antonio gets the first pick.
Speaker 3: This is just gonna be.
Speaker 2: A bigger story that if they get the first back again,
Speaker 2: are you kidding me? You know? And and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: then all the guys would really be out of the woodwork.
Speaker 2: But as it is, they're gonna get a They're gonna
Speaker 2: get one of those two guys, I would assume, and
Speaker 2: you know, and there they may be off to the
Speaker 2: races again.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's uh, that's that's you know.
Speaker 2: I don't know what to say about that, except except
Speaker 2: that's that's the proverbial and literal bounce of the ball.
Speaker 4: That's why they call it the lottery. There we go, Manny,
Speaker 4: Thanks for your time. My friend will see you soon, okays,
Speaker 4: appreciate you.
Speaker 3: Richard Smith Live in studio