Speaker 1: Tuesday afternoon, nine minutes past the hour two o'clock. I
Speaker 1: think it's officially the dog days of summer. It's like
Speaker 1: ninety eight degrees. I am sweating even though I'm in
Speaker 1: a dark cave of a radio studio. It is very
Speaker 1: hot outside. But as it is every single day, it's
Speaker 1: gonna have you along for the Rud's bench check. It's
Speaker 1: beyond the Mike Porl Larson behind the glass. We got
Speaker 1: a jam pack busy Tuesday show for you guys. As
Speaker 1: NBA free agency continues to roll along, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: what could be next with the Utah Jazz after moving
Speaker 1: on from Carlin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson, and we'll give
Speaker 1: you the up to date news cycle on what's happened
Speaker 1: since you and I last spoke and said good night
Speaker 1: last night at six o'clock. It's been a busy forty
Speaker 1: eight hours in the world of pro basketball, and today
Speaker 1: is the start free agency in the NHL and the
Speaker 1: Utah Hockey Club as the excuse me, the Utah Mammoth
Speaker 1: will get there. They've made some moves. We'll tell you
Speaker 1: about it, tell you about some of the new players,
Speaker 1: and keep you up to date on any of the
Speaker 1: movement around the NHL. Of no, there will not be
Speaker 1: as much NHL moving as there is in the NBA.
Speaker 1: It's just the leagues are very different that way. But
Speaker 1: Bill Armstrong and his staff, Austin Ainge, his staff busy
Speaker 1: right now working the phones to see what sort of
Speaker 1: pieces to the puzzle they can put together, or in
Speaker 1: the Jazz case, puzzle might be complete.
Speaker 2: We might not see anything else from the Jazz. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you why. We'll get into it. Coming up in
Speaker 2: just a little bit.
Speaker 1: The latest down a BYU with the Jake Rhetz laugh situation.
Speaker 1: We've got a good college football guest on the show today,
Speaker 1: RSL with a weekend clash taken on Saint Louis. The
Speaker 1: Royals will be taken on Orlando. That's going to be
Speaker 1: on Friday. So busy week, a couple weeks away from
Speaker 1: the official start of training camp. In the world of
Speaker 1: professional football, not a lot of news that way in
Speaker 1: the NFL is this is kind of the quiet time
Speaker 1: for both pro and college football. We will be in Dallas,
Speaker 1: Texas next week for Big twelve Media Day.
Speaker 2: Myself and Sean will have that for you.
Speaker 1: The Great OC We will be doing a couple of
Speaker 1: straight days of about six or seven hours of radio together.
Speaker 2: It should be fun.
Speaker 1: Kind of the unofficial start of the college football season,
Speaker 1: so stay tuned. That comes your way coming up next week.
Speaker 1: So busy Tuesday Show. Good to have you guys with us.
Speaker 1: We'll start things off today with Kyle Vonna Gurro. Kyle
Speaker 1: covers college football for ESPN, does a little soccer from
Speaker 1: time to time, but right now.
Speaker 2: Mostly college football.
Speaker 1: Kyle was one of the ESPN riders who wrote the
Speaker 1: piece on Jake rhetz Lath that came out with Pete
Speaker 1: Damil yesterday. So we'll talk about the situation down at BYU,
Speaker 1: will do some Big twelve football talks from Utah football,
Speaker 1: some offseason stuff with Kyle Bondagura from ESPN. Right out
Speaker 1: of the gates, gonna bring in Tim McMahon NBA Daily
Speaker 1: Assists Style. Several teams in the West making forward facing moves,
Speaker 1: taking steps in the right direction, namely the Houston Rockets
Speaker 1: go off Houston, They're getting everybody. Denver made a couple
Speaker 1: of moves that I like. We'll talk about the Nuggets move.
Speaker 1: San Antonio making some moves as well. So there are
Speaker 1: some teams in the West trying to make progress moving
Speaker 1: forward out east. Quinn Snyders, Atlanta Hawk suddenly might have
Speaker 1: something to say about the Eastern Conference next year. Milwaukee
Speaker 1: is very much not acting like a team that's going
Speaker 1: to trade Janna Sante to Combo, but they did stretch
Speaker 1: and wave Dame. Lillard will kind of explain that scenario
Speaker 1: to you. On the surface, optically, it's not a great
Speaker 1: look for a Hall of Fame player and one of
Speaker 1: my favorite NBA players of this generation. Utah's very owned
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard played his college basketball up here.
Speaker 2: But if your Dame, it's actually not bad news.
Speaker 1: We'll tell you why. We'll go over the details what
Speaker 1: a stretch provision is, what it means for Damian Lillard. Essentially,
Speaker 1: he's going to get his money and he's going to
Speaker 1: be able to pick his final destination to finish his
Speaker 1: career as a pro basketball player. So when you see
Speaker 1: the headline, you're like, wait, Damian Lillard gets cut, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about. Well, there could be a scenario
Speaker 1: at play here where this was a mutual deal.
Speaker 2: We'll talk to Tim McMahon about it. Today.
Speaker 1: He's going to join us. We'll do some jazz with
Speaker 1: Tim as well. I got Richard Smith. It was part
Speaker 1: of our draft coverage last week. We'll be live in
Speaker 1: the studio for an entire hour, and our friend Sarah
Speaker 1: Todd from the des Red News also stops by. Former
Speaker 1: University of Utah basketball player gets paid big time cash.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about that too.
Speaker 1: Kyle bodeger A, Tim McMahon, Richard Smith, Sarah Todd, me
Speaker 1: Spens check at all of you, the great listeners. And
Speaker 1: that guy who once upon a time got dunked on
Speaker 1: by Damian Lillard. He Now when you see the headline,
Speaker 1: you just go, wait a second, Yeah, that's wild. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: when you dig into it, this is not. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it will not be bad news
Speaker 1: for Dame.
Speaker 3: It will no, And I don't know that it's necessarily
Speaker 3: bad news for Milwaukee, right I think they're just at
Speaker 3: a different place right now, and Damian Lillard's focusing on
Speaker 3: one thing, and that's his achilles at the moment. So
Speaker 3: a guy who's in the later stages of his career
Speaker 3: spence and probably has if we're being completely honest, like
Speaker 3: one go at it post achilles guard who already isn't
Speaker 3: an oversized guard. He's not a guy who moves laterally
Speaker 3: much better than a lot of guards in the league.
Speaker 3: So this is something where you know he's gonna have
Speaker 3: kind of one chance to find a good landing spot
Speaker 3: and have hopefully a little little last stand as a
Speaker 3: scoring guard, maybe a number one option. I don't know offensively,
Speaker 3: at least could still be a really, really good piece,
Speaker 3: and I'm excited to see where he lands.
Speaker 2: It'll be interesting, Bill.
Speaker 1: Will and we'll see what's next in Milwaukee. They made
Speaker 1: a couple of different moves. So we'll discuss all the
Speaker 1: NBA free agency, the NBA offseason through the prism of
Speaker 1: the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference with some good
Speaker 1: basketball guest.
Speaker 2: Today, we'll give you an.
Speaker 1: Update on the Utah Mammoths first day and NHL free agency.
Speaker 1: They've signed a defenseman to a three year deal. We'll
Speaker 1: tell you about him. Actually made a couple of different
Speaker 1: moves throughout the course of today, so we'll keep you
Speaker 1: up to date on all of this on a busy
Speaker 1: Tuesday show. Our first guest will be Kyle Vonneger. But
Speaker 1: before Kyle rolls by, a courtesy of our good friends,
Speaker 1: you're good friends too. At Prize Picks. It is Todd
Speaker 1: now for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check its on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one sports talk now into the studios of ESPN
Speaker 4: seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The
Speaker 4: opening tip of the Drive is brought to you by
Speaker 4: Prize Picks. Use the code ESPN seven hundred and run
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Speaker 1: let's start here. It doesn't make any sense for either
Speaker 1: the Utah Jazz or Damian Lillard for the Jazz to
Speaker 1: make it play for Dame.
Speaker 2: It really doesn't when you.
Speaker 1: Look at it from a couple of different perspectives and angles,
Speaker 1: what do you bring them in on a one year
Speaker 1: deal and just kind of let them rehab in state?
Speaker 1: You know, I think with what we've seen the Jazz
Speaker 1: electing to move on from Colin Sexton. They trade Colin
Speaker 1: Sexton to the Charlotte Hornets. They had to attach a
Speaker 1: second round pick to Colin to get that transaction done,
Speaker 1: and ultimately they bring in a player with zero value.
Speaker 1: I don't think once upon a time I would have
Speaker 1: said that about Yusuf Nurkic, but I certainly I would
Speaker 1: say that right now and surprised that they actually had
Speaker 1: to attach the pick to Colin to get the transaction done.
Speaker 1: But what that does ultimately is give you an idea
Speaker 1: of what the market is now and has been for Colin,
Speaker 1: because if we're honest, whether it's Colin Sexton who they
Speaker 1: traded a Charlotte or Jordan Clarkson who they essentially cut,
Speaker 1: it was a buyout, and when you look at the
Speaker 1: details of the buyout, save the Jazz a little.
Speaker 2: Bit of money, ultimately they cut him.
Speaker 1: And that says that the market over the past few
Speaker 1: years has just been non existent, right because we've been
Speaker 1: waiting to see whether it was Colin, whether it was Clarkson,
Speaker 1: whether it was John Collins, or even a player like
Speaker 1: Lowry Marketen, who I still feel like is going to
Speaker 1: be here for a while.
Speaker 2: We'll get in some of that a little.
Speaker 1: Bit later on, if Justin's Annik or Danny Ainge. At
Speaker 1: the time the guy's making the decision prior to Austin's arrival,
Speaker 1: I think if they were able even to get like
Speaker 1: a salary match and a second round pick for either player,
Speaker 1: they would have done that deal. Now, a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, after the decision was made to break down
Speaker 1: the Gobert Mitchell, Dennis Lindsay, Quinn Snyder nine year iteration
Speaker 1: of jazz basketball, the conversation turned from Okay, moved on
Speaker 1: from Donovan, moved on from Rudy, moved on from Bogdanovich,
Speaker 1: moved on from Mike Conley. Okay, you got rid of
Speaker 1: all these players. What does this mean for Jordan Clarkson?
Speaker 1: And then after Colin Sexton is acquired via the Mitchell deal,
Speaker 1: the conversation kind of turned into, Okay, what does it
Speaker 1: mean for Colin? Because it felt like those two would
Speaker 1: have had some market value. They moved off of o
Speaker 1: Chaio Baji really quick, who, by the way, played pretty
Speaker 1: well in Toronto last year. Some of the other pieces
Speaker 1: nikile Alexander Walker, who ironically enough is going to Atlanta
Speaker 1: where he'll play for Quinn. And when Quinn had Nikhil
Speaker 1: Alexander Walker here, he couldn't get off the bench. And
Speaker 1: I actually thought Alexander Walker was a better player than
Speaker 1: Royce O'Neil, who Quinn preferred.
Speaker 2: I never really knew why.
Speaker 1: So kind of an interesting non sequitor storyline that's a
Speaker 1: reunion of a coach and a player that didn't seem
Speaker 1: to really get much going when they were together prior
Speaker 1: to but ultimately, when you see what's happened here, I
Speaker 1: did mention this after Austin Age took the job, okay,
Speaker 1: And I don't know if there's anything here, but if
Speaker 1: you're a jazz fan, you've heard a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: jazz coaches, jazz players, people that worked for the jazz
Speaker 1: just applaud Jordan Clarkson for the way he handled himself
Speaker 1: off the court. He did become kind of like this leader.
Speaker 1: I believe it's painted in the locker room lead with
Speaker 1: love or show love or whatever. Jordan's thing is. And
Speaker 1: then you have Will Hardy wearing a hat that says
Speaker 1: show love at a press conference. That was Clarkson's thing
Speaker 1: and throughout the course of the worst stretch in the
Speaker 1: history of this organization under this ownership group. I think
Speaker 1: things like that actually endeared Jordan to the community and
Speaker 1: he deserves that, deserves those flowers, as the kids would say. Now,
Speaker 1: unfortunately the reality is over the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: he has not been near the player that he was
Speaker 1: when he played for Quinn and won six Man of
Speaker 1: the Year. You know, one of the coolest moments of
Speaker 1: that stretch of jazz basketball was Joe Ingles and Jordan
Speaker 1: Clarkson were two finalists for six Man of the Year
Speaker 1: a number of years ago, and they had this cool
Speaker 1: moment where Joe and Jordan were on television I think
Speaker 1: it was Turner after a game and they asked the
Speaker 1: trivia question how many players in jazz history of won
Speaker 1: six Man of the Year and Jordan said no, and
Speaker 1: then Joe held up his finger and said no, it's
Speaker 1: actually one, and they announced that won it.
Speaker 2: It was a really cool thing, really cool moment.
Speaker 1: So there are there there kind of is this sentiment
Speaker 1: across the market that a lot of people are sad
Speaker 1: to see Jordan go on his way, because I think
Speaker 1: he has meant a lot to a lot of people
Speaker 1: here throughout the course of a really clunky rebuild that's
Speaker 1: only led to mediocrity at best and pathetic play at worst.
Speaker 1: Jordan was kind of the vibe guy that kept things going.
Speaker 1: So sad to see him go, But the reality is,
Speaker 1: over the past couple of years, he has been barely
Speaker 1: an average player, you know, barely a rotational player for
Speaker 1: a team that's actually trying to win.
Speaker 2: And Jordan will now land in New.
Speaker 1: York, right, and he's gonna play for the Knicks, and
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see because the Knicks did rely
Speaker 1: for their second team offensive attack last year. They didn't
Speaker 1: have a ton of punch off the bench. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you noticed. Tom Thibbadau didn't play anybody. The
Speaker 1: Duce McBride kids a nice young player. But maybe Clarkson
Speaker 1: can step in there. And for a team that's actually
Speaker 1: trying to win in an Eastern Conference, it's very fluid.
Speaker 1: Next year, I would imagine Jordan could play a role,
Speaker 1: but at the past two years or any indication of
Speaker 1: who Jordan Clarkson is now as an NBA player. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that that's a huge loss for the Jazz
Speaker 1: on the floor. Okay, So ultimately what this does, Okay,
Speaker 1: it does one thing. So back to the Austin Ange dynamic,
Speaker 1: who did not acquire any of these players prior to
Speaker 1: this draft cycle, was not a part of drafting any
Speaker 1: of these players. I just would imagine Austin Ainge is
Speaker 1: wired a little bit like his dad, where he just
Speaker 1: removes a motion from decision making and doesn't give a
Speaker 1: rip about players that he has not acquired. Now that
Speaker 1: the owner himself, Ryan Smith, has let us all know
Speaker 1: that he is the primary decision maker, so I just
Speaker 1: have to wonder whether it was Justin Zanik who was
Speaker 1: part of the trade, which, by the way, the Clarkson
Speaker 1: trade in retrospect, was a great deal by the Jazz.
Speaker 1: The traded Dante exem and I think two second rounders
Speaker 1: for Clarkson, who stepped in here and became one of,
Speaker 1: if not the best bench player in the history.
Speaker 2: Of Jazz basketball. All due respect to our guy a big.
Speaker 1: He thorowed Bailey, So an excellent transaction, and pardon me,
Speaker 1: wonders if Xanik or Danny Ainge was a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use the term loyal, but I don't
Speaker 1: want that to sound like I'm knocking on Austin for
Speaker 1: not being loyal. My point is Austin just doesn't give
Speaker 1: a rib because he didn't acquire these players.
Speaker 2: He's new, okay, So he's.
Speaker 1: Looking at this roster maybe a little bit the same
Speaker 1: way Dennis Lindsay looked at it when he took the
Speaker 1: job as kind of a blank canvas where he can
Speaker 1: draw his own painting.
Speaker 2: He can paint his own creation.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if Danny and Justin were a little
Speaker 1: bit too stubborn in their asks for either Colin Sectioner
Speaker 1: or Jordan Clarkson, because what the transactions have indicated is
Speaker 1: there was no market for these two players at all.
Speaker 1: You had to attach his future second round pick, and
Speaker 1: is that a huge asset.
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 1: But if you can grab a second round pick, it
Speaker 1: gives you another bite of the apple. And if you
Speaker 1: knock it out of the park the way certain second
Speaker 1: round picks have been knocked out of the park, namely
Speaker 1: the best basketball player on the planet riding now Nikola Jokic,
Speaker 1: then you look back at that risk, and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: you really had to give up a second round pick
Speaker 1: just to get off of Clarkson, and your quote unquote
Speaker 1: reward is a player in Usuf Nurkic that is basically
Speaker 1: a net negative. He's a veteran backup center that I
Speaker 1: suppose can provide some physicality and practice to Walker Kessler.
Speaker 1: He also was on an expiring d you, although expiring
Speaker 1: contracts don't have the value they once did, so maybe
Speaker 1: you can move Nurkic at the deadline. The net net
Speaker 1: of what I'm talking about is simply this. I don't
Speaker 1: know what else the Jazz are going to do this offseason.
Speaker 1: I think there's there's potential because I do think John Collins,
Speaker 1: and if we're honest about John Collins, he is coming
Speaker 1: off a career year. Okay, So if you're a team
Speaker 1: like the Lakers, if you were a team that has
Speaker 1: kind of been passed by by some of your other
Speaker 1: conference peers, you could do worse than John Collins. The
Speaker 1: problem is twenty six point five mil got to match
Speaker 1: that salary coming back, and you got to figure out
Speaker 1: what that looks like. And there is a world that
Speaker 1: exists that John Collins is kind of like a guy
Speaker 1: that you do want to pay because you do have
Speaker 1: to meet a salary floor. In the NBA, everybody talks
Speaker 1: about the second apron, the salary cap, you know, where
Speaker 1: you can't go over certain numbers because it's punitive in
Speaker 1: a way that we've.
Speaker 2: Seen a lot of roster movie. You also have to
Speaker 2: meet a salary floor.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have to pay somebody, and maybe that's
Speaker 1: somebody is John Collins. My point is there's a chance
Speaker 1: that if you pull up the Jazz depth chart right now,
Speaker 1: this is your team and this is who we're going
Speaker 1: to see next year. And that's okay because, as we've
Speaker 1: discussed and as we will continue to cover, the Jazz
Speaker 1: have a draft pick next year that is top eight protected,
Speaker 1: and if they're out of the top eight, it goes
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma City. And at this stage in your roster construction,
Speaker 1: when next year's draft is thought to be a place
Speaker 1: where maybe four or five franchise changing pieces exist, you
Speaker 1: have to hold on to that asset. It would be
Speaker 1: moutheasance if you elected to go all in on trying
Speaker 1: to be mediocre and suddenly you fall to nine, ten
Speaker 1: or eleven, and that pick goes to the offending World Champs.
Speaker 2: It would be a horrible way to approach this.
Speaker 1: So I know a lot of jazz fans are seeing
Speaker 1: all this player movement and going, wait a second, how
Speaker 1: do we get involved here? There are good players on
Speaker 1: the move, why aren't we acquiring any of them? Well,
Speaker 1: the main reason is, as Austin Am said, they're not
Speaker 1: going to manipul eight minutes to tank or try.
Speaker 2: To lose games.
Speaker 1: But there's a way to do that in the NBA
Speaker 1: without being obvious about it. So you're not fined by
Speaker 1: the league when you sit healthy veteran players, and it's
Speaker 1: very simple. You're going to see a lot of Isaiah Collier.
Speaker 1: You're going to see a lot of Keyante George. This
Speaker 1: is a big year for Kiante specifically. You're going to
Speaker 1: see Bryce sen Siba. You're going to see wal Clayton junior.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see Ace Bailey. You're going to see Taylor Hendricks,
Speaker 1: You're gonna see Walker Kessler, Kyle Philipowski, etc. You are
Speaker 1: going to see these pups play. Now, last year they
Speaker 1: fed us the BS line pups can't raise pups. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what pups are raising pups. That kennel is full
Speaker 1: of children, and hopefully some of them provide steps forward
Speaker 1: and provide hope for what this team can look like
Speaker 1: in three or four years, because guys, the reality is
Speaker 1: that's how long this is going to take before they're
Speaker 1: even kind of good. Yeah, Big twelve Football Media Days
Speaker 1: next week in Dallas, Texas will be down there as
Speaker 1: you're home of the Utes.
Speaker 2: Myself and Sean O'Connell.
Speaker 1: Have you taken care of We'll do back to back
Speaker 1: days of like seven.
Speaker 2: Hours of radio, so it should be a good time.
Speaker 2: It's kind of the unofficial.
Speaker 1: Start of the college football calendar for the University of Utah.
Speaker 1: Our next guest covers college football.
Speaker 2: And some other things. We'll do mostly.
Speaker 1: Football today, ever, Buddy Kyle Bonagura from ESPN on a Tuesday, Kyle,
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday man.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 5: I do good spens in Jorge summer and kind of
Speaker 5: gearing up for the season, talking season starting.
Speaker 1: I guess yes, indeed, yes, indeed, so the big news
Speaker 1: around here over the past well past number of weeks,
Speaker 1: but a different kind of tone and tenor and direction.
Speaker 1: As a judge has granted a joint mo from b
Speaker 1: YU quarterback Jake Rahetz Laugh and his accuser to dismiss
Speaker 1: the civil suit against him. You and Pete Thamill doing
Speaker 1: a great job as always covering this. In addition, Jake
Speaker 1: has told his coaches and teammates he is now looking
Speaker 1: for a new place to play as a result of
Speaker 1: facing a seven game suspension. Just kind of unpack your
Speaker 1: thoughts on this whole thing, the whole process, and what
Speaker 1: you think comes next.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's really it's really complex, right, It's
Speaker 5: it's sensitive, it's complex. There's a lot of moving pieces here,
Speaker 5: you know, for for college football fans, like the bottom
Speaker 5: line kind of where we kind of left off here,
Speaker 5: you know this week is that Jake Retzlaf fan, like
Speaker 5: you said, the woman who accused him of rape, they
Speaker 5: they their case was dismissed. What the indication is is
Speaker 5: that there was probably some sort of a settlement and
Speaker 5: they agreed to kind of go their separate ways. And
Speaker 5: so what for Retsloft this means is that as part
Speaker 5: of his defense and maybe you guys to talk about this,
Speaker 5: is that he admitted to you know, his defense was
Speaker 5: that the encounter was a scent, was consensual sex, which
Speaker 5: of course, is a violation of uiu's honor code. We've
Speaker 5: seen a number of cases or instances in the past
Speaker 5: where you know, athletes you know, admitted to having sex
Speaker 5: and we're forced if they forced into a suspension or
Speaker 5: kicked off the team. So as soon as as soon
Speaker 5: as this was I guess last Friday, when that defense
Speaker 5: publicly surface, I think it was pretty easy to kind
Speaker 5: of see that a suspension was coming. Then I was
Speaker 5: able to confirm that, you know, seven games was the expectation.
Speaker 5: And for Jake faced the seven games suspension in his
Speaker 5: final year of eligibility, a year that he hoped to
Speaker 5: develop into an NFL prospect. I think he made the
Speaker 5: decision pretty easy to ask uh to decide to transfer
Speaker 5: from the UYU. And now we'll see, we'll see where
Speaker 5: he ends up. Right, There's a stigma now attached to
Speaker 5: him as a result of the accusations, right, and so.
Speaker 6: We'll kind of see.
Speaker 5: Where that goes. I think we'll have a pretty good
Speaker 5: sense to the next week or two where he winds up,
Speaker 5: and I do expect him to find a home before
Speaker 5: the season begins.
Speaker 1: So I am not a lawyer and Kyle, unless I
Speaker 1: am mistaken. Neither of you correct.
Speaker 5: Just spend too much time reading legal filings without the
Speaker 5: education to make sense of them completely.
Speaker 2: For sure, for sure.
Speaker 1: But I'll ask and if there's not much here, we
Speaker 1: can just move in another direction. Maybe you can enlighten
Speaker 1: us on how this process kind of played out. Lawsuit filed, Okay,
Speaker 1: that we had you on pretty quick after that, because
Speaker 1: the details that you guys were reporting on at BYU
Speaker 1: as far as her accusations were, they were horrible. And
Speaker 1: then you know, Retz left is an attorney, and his
Speaker 1: attorney they filed kind of their side of things and
Speaker 1: they were very adamant that this was consensual and that
Speaker 1: included some pretty heavy language in the direction of this
Speaker 1: young lady as well. And then we have this situation
Speaker 1: where again the you know, it's kind of assumed that
Speaker 1: a settlement was reached, but we don't have any information
Speaker 1: in that direction. Now the judges is signing this to
Speaker 1: kind of just dismiss the whole thing. Can you enlighten
Speaker 1: us in kind of how this process works and you know,
Speaker 1: how they kind of came to this resolution if that
Speaker 1: makes sense, Yeah, and I.
Speaker 5: Think you can, like and the process is pretty similar
Speaker 5: not with just this case in particular, but like all
Speaker 5: all civil cases that are similar, right, they all follow
Speaker 5: a very similar kind of order of events. Right, the
Speaker 5: complaint is filed by the accusing party, she remains nameless.
Speaker 5: Then you have a certain amount of days to reply, right,
Speaker 5: and so you know, I don't know what the exact
Speaker 5: number is, but that period time is thirty sixty days
Speaker 5: or some period you know in the within those parameters.
Speaker 5: That's what happened last week. So Jake's hires an attorney,
Speaker 5: they file a response to why they think it should
Speaker 5: be dismissed or the or here's their defense that that's
Speaker 5: all standard, right is when and when you're talking about
Speaker 5: civil cases, it can go a number of ways. Right.
Speaker 5: It can be flat out dismissed by a judge like
Speaker 5: hey on its mayor we don't see anything here, there's
Speaker 5: not enough to proceed there is. It can go to trial, right,
Speaker 5: you all move forward, and that could take a couple
Speaker 5: of years to wind through the court system to a
Speaker 5: point where we actually have a jury trial. That was
Speaker 5: the demand, the quote unquote demand in the original complaint,
Speaker 5: which is all standard in the third like really common
Speaker 5: door to go through as a settlement, right, And I
Speaker 5: think that the based on the language that was included
Speaker 5: in the joint motion to dismiss, it's hard to come
Speaker 5: up with any other scenario to why they would have
Speaker 5: filed that unless they had come to some sort of
Speaker 5: a settlement. It's likely a financial settlement. And the territory
Speaker 5: you start treading into there is like in those cases,
Speaker 5: both parties agree not to ever discuss it, right, it
Speaker 5: would violate that the terms of the agreement, So the
Speaker 5: woman and her legal team are not allowed to discuss it.
Speaker 5: I'm sure there's some sort of financial penalties if they
Speaker 5: were to do so, and I think it's probably the
Speaker 5: same on the other side, where where Jake or his
Speaker 5: legal team is also not at liberty to discuss the numbers, right,
Speaker 5: And so it's easy to make the assumption. I think
Speaker 5: anyone understands that's probably what took place based on how
Speaker 5: it being unfolded. But there's just not going to be
Speaker 5: any more details just because of the kind of the
Speaker 5: way these things are structured.
Speaker 2: Any inside at all.
Speaker 1: And I am just asking to ask because I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, if you read the tea leaves DYU,
Speaker 1: the Institution must have read Jake's court filing and what
Speaker 1: he had to say about, you know, the events that
Speaker 1: took place, and when he admitted to consensual premarital sex.
Speaker 1: I just am assuming that that's when the punishment came
Speaker 1: down and it was going to be seven games. Is
Speaker 1: that just a SA safe way to assume how this went?
Speaker 5: Yes, honest, I can say that I in talking with
Speaker 5: sources and Durma reporting problems, I know that Jake met
Speaker 5: with the school prior to the reply last week being filed. So,
Speaker 5: like b YU, was not caught off guard by what
Speaker 5: was outlined in the reply where he admitted publicly that
Speaker 5: this you know, his or his stance publicly was that
Speaker 5: that the sex was consensual. So by the time Friday
Speaker 5: rolled around, the university had already been able to discuss
Speaker 5: internally what the appropriate punishment should be, and like how
Speaker 5: they settled on seven games, it feels a little arbitrary
Speaker 5: to me, but you know, I don't have a great
Speaker 5: sense of how they determined that was the number, but
Speaker 5: but it was relayed to him last week. I believe
Speaker 5: on Friday that the number would be seven and at
Speaker 5: that point, yeah, I think it was a very easy
Speaker 5: decision for him to move on, and like, I don't
Speaker 5: think he was caught off guard by it either. Right,
Speaker 5: there's the precedent is there at BUYU that like this
Speaker 5: stuff is, this is how they deal with it. There
Speaker 5: there's the honor code that you kind of you know,
Speaker 5: you can we can have a longer conversation about the
Speaker 5: merits of it, but like that's what you signed up
Speaker 5: for when you go to that school, and so you
Speaker 5: kind of have to live with the consequences if you
Speaker 5: break the honor code. So that's and that's kind of
Speaker 5: where we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the problem and I've said this quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I said it when the story came out. I've been
Speaker 1: doing radio in this market coming up this fallow to
Speaker 1: be twenty years and my most unfavorite things to cover
Speaker 1: are BYU honor code violations from players when things like
Speaker 1: this take place, because there are so many angles where
Speaker 1: you feel, at least I feel that you need to
Speaker 1: be fair to everybody involved in you know, the community
Speaker 1: of people that decide to go online and take victory
Speaker 1: laps if you're a UTAH fan or accuse this woman
Speaker 1: of extorting or lying, if you're a BYU fan, the thing.
Speaker 1: The whole thing feels really gross to me, Kyle, I
Speaker 1: don't enjoy it. But to your point about having a
Speaker 1: bigger conversation about whether or not the honor code is antiquated,
Speaker 1: whether or not it needs to be adjusted, I find
Speaker 1: that to be a moot point. You know what you
Speaker 1: get into when you go down there. I had five
Speaker 1: siblings that went to BYU. I mean, and there's no ambiguity,
Speaker 1: by the way, Like it's there's no gray area, like
Speaker 1: if you're going to go there, you're expected to behave
Speaker 1: as and if you don't, you need to understand like
Speaker 1: things like this could happen to me.
Speaker 2: That's just kind of the bottom line.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's it's it's very clear, right, And
Speaker 5: that's why I don't think he was surprised that there
Speaker 5: was a suspension. I mean, he's been starting quarterback at
Speaker 5: IT for a program with very high aspirations this coming year,
Speaker 5: and and and that didn't matter, right. I Mean we
Speaker 5: saw it, however, many years ago with with Brandon Davies,
Speaker 5: like getting suspended when the basketball team was twenty seven
Speaker 5: to two and right number two in the country, right,
Speaker 5: Like that's just that's that's how it works there and
Speaker 5: so you have to kind of accept it if you're
Speaker 5: going to play it there. It does complicate things though,
Speaker 5: Uh you know that that he's not that he's not Mormon, right,
Speaker 5: that he's you know, there was you know, he had
Speaker 5: by J trademarked last year because he was such a
Speaker 5: unique uh you know, dynamic for to have a Jewish
Speaker 5: starting quarterback at BYU for the first time ever. Uh,
Speaker 5: it was you know interesting if nothing else, and so
Speaker 5: uh the fact that he's you know, not of that faith,
Speaker 5: but you know is being punished for you know, the
Speaker 5: beliefs of that religion is also like the very interesting conversation. Right,
Speaker 5: it's not football related at all. It's it's it's society
Speaker 5: and it's uh everything that goes into that. But you know,
Speaker 5: from from a college football standpoint, you know, there would
Speaker 5: it would have been very easy to avoid this scenarios
Speaker 5: Thurgy Grepsop and now he's just got to deal with it.
Speaker 1: I wonder how And you know, this is where we
Speaker 1: get into this like slippery slope with this conversation, you know,
Speaker 1: because out here we're used to this and certainly whether
Speaker 1: you're a member of the LDS Church or not, if
Speaker 1: you live in this state, you have to find a
Speaker 1: way to exist in the ecosystem that's dominated on every
Speaker 1: level of state by the religion that essentially you know,
Speaker 1: settled here hundreds of years ago. So out here something
Speaker 1: like this goes down, you're kind of like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the b YU experience. I wonder how you would articulate
Speaker 1: the reaction from somebody who's an outsider looking in and look,
Speaker 1: you've covered by you and maybe you're the wrong the
Speaker 1: wrong guy asked this because you do you are familiar
Speaker 1: with Salt Lake. You've covered Utah on the Pack twelve, mean,
Speaker 1: you've covered BYU stories. But when something like this happens,
Speaker 1: how do you think it's kind of digested and optically
Speaker 1: it looks from the outside looking in from somebody who
Speaker 1: may not be familiar with how this stuff works.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's an interesting question because like, yeah, like I'll
Speaker 5: just say none of this kind of common app that
Speaker 5: I've been around it enough to have like understand kind
Speaker 5: of the state of play for the most part, So
Speaker 5: I a feel like I had a decent understanding for
Speaker 5: being an outsider. But like imagine telling someone this and
Speaker 5: like the south right, like the college football quarterback. You know,
Speaker 5: your quarterback is suspended because he had sex, like pad
Speaker 5: pre marital sex.
Speaker 6: It's insane.
Speaker 5: Like, I think there's like an expectation that like, yeah,
Speaker 5: he's the quarterback of a college of like a ranked
Speaker 5: college football team. That is challenging for you know, conference titles.
Speaker 5: There's a you know, there's a perception of what that
Speaker 5: individual social life might be, right, that comes with being
Speaker 5: a high profile athlete in college sports, especially the quarterback. Right,
Speaker 5: So if anything, you know, you would be I think
Speaker 5: you have a lot of people surprised if the starting
Speaker 5: quarterback wasn't having sex. Right, That's just that's just the
Speaker 5: reality of what the perception is nationally about about about
Speaker 5: that position. But but again, so I think, yeah, there's
Speaker 5: some people that of course are not going to agree
Speaker 5: with it, and they're gonna think it's weird, and and
Speaker 5: that's just the way it is, right. There's no there's
Speaker 5: no uh, you know, there's there's no way, no other
Speaker 5: way to explain it, right, There's just cultural differences, and
Speaker 5: you know it's in you know, in the United States,
Speaker 5: there's so many different subcultures that are that are so different,
Speaker 5: and college football has a way of bringing them all together,
Speaker 5: which I think most of the time is actually a
Speaker 5: really good thing and exposed to you to different backgrounds
Speaker 5: and areas of the country, which which mixes them all together.
Speaker 5: But certainly you're gonna have this, uh, you're gonna have
Speaker 5: some some shock at times when stuff like this this
Speaker 5: plays out.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's anything about this and again, just
Speaker 1: covering this whole thing and trying to try to talk
Speaker 1: about it appropriately and cover all sides if it appropriately,
Speaker 1: continues to feel weird. And the the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is, Kyle, as you know, ever since nil became
Speaker 1: a reality, BYU has been able to recruit at a
Speaker 1: very high level. Their twenty twenty six class, as a
Speaker 1: result of another commit is currently top twenty five according
Speaker 1: to the ESPN rankings. They've got the best college basketball
Speaker 1: freshmen in America playing in Provo next year. So the
Speaker 1: weird kind of dichotomy here is on one side, they've
Speaker 1: been able to find this lane with deep pocketed donors
Speaker 1: writing big time checks to pay what you need to
Speaker 1: pay to attract talent. Do you think something like this
Speaker 1: with the Jake stuff could have an adverse effect on
Speaker 1: the program when people kind of dig into it and
Speaker 1: to your point, might look at this as antiquated or weird.
Speaker 6: I think so yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean I think if you put yourself in the
Speaker 5: shoes of a bunch of eighteen year old kids, right,
Speaker 5: there are some of them who are not going to
Speaker 5: want to go into that sort of environment. That's just
Speaker 5: the reality of it, right, And so but I think
Speaker 5: that was the case before. Like this is just the
Speaker 5: most recent example of like, hey, it's front and center.
Speaker 5: It kind of refreshes the idea of like, hey, like
Speaker 5: this is kind of the environment that you're signing up for,
Speaker 5: and it's it's going to some people are going to
Speaker 5: shy away from it. But I do think that BUYU
Speaker 5: has benefited as much as anyone in college athletics by
Speaker 5: the way things have developed. From an analys standpoint, I mean,
Speaker 5: look at basketball, look at football. Like you know, I
Speaker 5: and I talk to some people over at BUYU and
Speaker 5: they see it as look like YU is like the
Speaker 5: church is very like sees this as an opportunity to
Speaker 5: help sure, right, because the more high profile BUYU athletics is,
Speaker 5: the more front and center the LDS religion is, right,
Speaker 5: That's just it's it's pure marketing, right, And so there's
Speaker 5: an investment into football that benefits the church in that way.
Speaker 5: There's just like, look, you also want to be successful
Speaker 5: in sports. This is an opportunity. There's a lot of
Speaker 5: money there that can be using and is be and
Speaker 5: is being is to help fund these programs. And so
Speaker 5: I think like on balance, BYU is benefiting from this,
Speaker 5: but certainly like this event if you're gonna have any
Speaker 5: negative rippercursions as well, but the laundromatic still be r So.
Speaker 1: It does come after a season where BYU cut a
Speaker 1: lot of people off guard with how well they played.
Speaker 1: And you know, interestingly enough, and we've talked about this
Speaker 1: so we don't need to look back on it, but
Speaker 1: the two games they lost like they they weren't that
Speaker 1: far off from having like an extraordinary season, cracking a
Speaker 1: cup here, what have you. But they stumble down the
Speaker 1: stretch at home to Kansas, and then they lose an
Speaker 1: absolute dogfight Arizona State, they beat Colorado and the Alamo
Speaker 1: Bowl they go eleven and two. So now we move
Speaker 1: over to what could be next for them. You know,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing is Jake was eleventh in the Big
Speaker 1: twelve and QBR oftentimes they were able to win in
Speaker 1: spite of some really bad decisions he made. So when
Speaker 1: you look at you know, the quarterback room, McKay Hillstead
Speaker 1: is a Utah State transfer of tracing Boorgay and Bear Bachmeyer.
Speaker 2: I don't know who's going to get the job.
Speaker 1: But the football takeaway as we are awkwardly now to
Speaker 1: make this a football topic because it's just so weird
Speaker 1: to talk about all this stuff, what do you think
Speaker 1: this means for BYU football this year in the Big twelve?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's it's it's hard to say, right because
Speaker 5: like we just don't know how good the other quarterbacks
Speaker 5: will being. It's like, as good as Redsoft was, he
Speaker 5: wasn't like it was a set of the world on fire.
Speaker 5: I think it was a competent quarterback who who didn't
Speaker 5: lose games and and you know that's actually like a
Speaker 5: really valuable asset like Aspett to have, right, Like he
Speaker 5: he made some mistakes at times and wasn't perfect and
Speaker 5: and and showed flashes at times where he where I
Speaker 5: thought he was really good. I think there was a
Speaker 5: lot of uh, you know, a stock being in put
Speaker 5: into him coming back as the starter, right and not
Speaker 5: being the same quarterback that he was last year and
Speaker 5: being able to have that that year of starting experience
Speaker 5: under his belt where now he's able to kind of
Speaker 5: make the step next step and be it more just
Speaker 5: be a better player. Right with him gone, that it's
Speaker 5: a it's a complete unknown. I mean, I think L J.
Speaker 5: Martin is actually a really good back, Like like, I
Speaker 5: think he's progressed pretty well in the last two years.
Speaker 5: Like so I think a lot more will be put
Speaker 5: on him than probably would have been expected if if
Speaker 5: rets Off was coming back. But yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 5: a complete that noun with with with who the other
Speaker 5: quarterbacks are. You know, you got three different transfers, so
Speaker 5: we'll see. Like I still think, you know, this is
Speaker 5: a team that won with defense last year, right They
Speaker 5: had the best defense in the Big Twelve if I'm
Speaker 5: not mistaken statistically, if not, you know, one of the
Speaker 5: best of the country really and so when you're making
Speaker 5: your money that way, I think a lot of that
Speaker 5: is Schematically they're very sound, and you know, they've got
Speaker 5: some really important players to replace. But at the same time,
Speaker 5: there's enough coming back to where I think the expectations
Speaker 5: of the defense should still be very good. So with
Speaker 5: all those factors. I still think BUYU will will head
Speaker 5: into this year with really high expectations. But and we
Speaker 5: talked about this in the past, spense like it's just
Speaker 5: so hard to predict college football now with all the
Speaker 5: rosters turnover. Yeah, there's a lot Like reading the Telia,
Speaker 5: they should still be pretty good. But you know they
Speaker 5: were expected to come what like thirteenth in the conference
Speaker 5: lass year and almost won it. So what do we know?
Speaker 2: Not a lot, I guess, And that's the problem.
Speaker 6: I mean.
Speaker 1: Now I want to ask you about your thoughts on
Speaker 1: the Big twelve, but it is July first, and I
Speaker 1: would imagine that you've read some of the same predictions
Speaker 1: I've read. Phil Steele came out with his annually. He's
Speaker 1: got Baylor winning the conference, Utah at two. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of preseason predictions that have Utah in the
Speaker 1: area of like four to seven. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are curious about Texas Tech with the money
Speaker 1: they've spent. Then there's like the stall Wards k State
Speaker 1: Iowa State. Obviously we have to talk about Kenny Dillingham
Speaker 1: and the team that won the conference a year ago.
Speaker 1: But on July first, Kyle, what's your gut tell you
Speaker 1: about this conference. It just seems to cannibalize itself, just
Speaker 1: like the Pac twelve US too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was actually going to make the comparison. As
Speaker 5: you're kind of reading those lists of you can make
Speaker 5: the like you can make the case for all those
Speaker 5: teams and feel pretty good about it, right, And I
Speaker 5: think that's actually why I really like the Big twelve
Speaker 5: and like, like it's really an interesting conference to start
Speaker 5: paying more attention to because it is wide open. There
Speaker 5: isn't the established powers. I like the parody and it
Speaker 5: doesn't it's not necessarily great, like for national prominence not
Speaker 5: to have just like a Bell Coal at the top.
Speaker 5: You can rely on to the top five or whatever.
Speaker 5: But you know, Arizona State was a great story last year.
Speaker 5: They were I think picked to come second to last
Speaker 5: in the conference and to go to the playoffs and
Speaker 5: showed well I thought in the playoffs. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna I think, I ask you, you know, for me,
Speaker 5: they're very interesting. Of course they've got a lot of
Speaker 5: production to replays. But then the most intriguing team I
Speaker 5: think has to be Texas Tech because in this era
Speaker 5: of college football, money matters, right, like if you look
Speaker 5: at salary caps like an unsalary caps sports, but the
Speaker 5: teams with the highest payrolls are usually the best teams.
Speaker 5: Like it's a really easy correlation to make you have
Speaker 5: the most money, you get the best players. Texas Tech
Speaker 5: is that team. Like we've seen reports that you know,
Speaker 5: maybe thirty forty million dollars on their roster, and whatever
Speaker 5: the exact number, it doesn't really matter. Like the takeaway
Speaker 5: is it's a lot, and it's more than most other programs,
Speaker 5: not just in the Big twelve, but it's among the
Speaker 5: elite spenders in college football. So that's gonna that's gonna
Speaker 5: help you out. The scheme and all that stuff matters too,
Speaker 5: But the talent, at the end of the day is
Speaker 5: the most important aspect of winning football games.
Speaker 6: And so for me, I.
Speaker 5: Would probably pick Texas Tech as as a favorite. And
Speaker 5: then you know, confidence level on that like not a lot,
Speaker 5: because again there's just this is just so hard to premit.
Speaker 1: All right, before I say you loose, let's talk about
Speaker 1: and unpack what you wrote concerning you know, and thank
Speaker 1: you for not writing about Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson.
Speaker 2: I don't really need to read about that. Anymore.
Speaker 1: But you did write about Bill Belichick, you know, obviously no.
Speaker 2: Longer in pro football.
Speaker 1: He's moved to the College of Ranks of Carolina, And
Speaker 1: you wrote about a coach that people around here know,
Speaker 1: of course, and Bill Walsh, and kind of drew a
Speaker 1: parallel between how this could how this could look for Belichick.
Speaker 2: So I want you on pack what you wrote.
Speaker 1: And then I'm wondering if you think we will see
Speaker 1: more coaches maybe tried this path if the NFL door
Speaker 1: closes now that things are a little bit different in
Speaker 1: the college game, that feels a little bit more professional.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So it's the.
Speaker 5: Servisult for all, a lot of fun to report. I
Speaker 5: grew up in the barriers, you know, and like follow
Speaker 5: the forty nine Ers dynasty and all of that. Bill
Speaker 5: Walsh is just kind of a legend. I mean the
Speaker 5: legend everywhere, but certainly here in the Bay area. And
Speaker 5: so they have a chance to talk with a bunch
Speaker 5: of coaches and players who were on his Stanford team
Speaker 5: in ninety two. Was just a funny assignment for me
Speaker 5: to do. It's it's the parallels are are pretty cool.
Speaker 5: It's this guy who oversaw dynasty, coached the best quarterback
Speaker 5: in the NFL in NFL history at that point in
Speaker 5: Joe Montana and the steps aside reasons are different, and
Speaker 5: then decides he wants to get back into coaching and
Speaker 5: returns to college football. He had, you know, he had
Speaker 5: been the coach at Stanford before. So it's not the
Speaker 5: same as Belichick going to the college game for the
Speaker 5: first time, but it is the same that you have
Speaker 5: the guy who is essentially the defining genius of the
Speaker 5: sport schematically at the I'm you know, becoming a college
Speaker 5: football coach and trying to you know, reverse engineer what
Speaker 5: he did in the NFL for the college level. They
Speaker 5: had a really good year in ninety two. They finished
Speaker 5: ranked in the top ten, which is obviously very difficult
Speaker 5: to do at Stanford. I have a lot of really
Speaker 5: good anecdotes and stories in my piece that published today.
Speaker 5: You know, Tom Holmo, that you know, just obviously set
Speaker 5: down as the idea of BYU recently had a few
Speaker 5: of those. I mean, he talked about getting a call
Speaker 5: from Walsh we played for with the forty nine ers.
Speaker 5: He had just finished two years as a as a
Speaker 5: grad assistant at BYU. He's trying to break into the
Speaker 5: next stage of his life, and Walsh calls the BYU
Speaker 5: facility in nineteen ninety at the end of ninety one
Speaker 5: or early ninety two, maybe January of ninety two, tells Tom, Hey,
Speaker 5: I'm going to Stanford and you're coming with me something
Speaker 5: like that, right, And Tom's like, okay, great. He calls
Speaker 5: his wife and she's asking them all sorts of questions
Speaker 5: like how much he getting paid, what position are you coaching?
Speaker 5: All these things. HEAs, I don't know, I have no idea.
Speaker 5: I didn't I didn't ask him many of those questions.
Speaker 5: But it's Bill Walsh. It's my first job, full first
Speaker 5: full time job, you know, after playing for football. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna take it. He tells another story about going down
Speaker 5: to Louisiana on a recruiting trip with Walsh, and there
Speaker 5: it's the small town in Louisiana. They're after this big
Speaker 5: time defensive back, and the high school coach parades them
Speaker 5: around town, stopping by all the establishments. Eventually it takes
Speaker 5: into a restaurant for dinner.
Speaker 6: That night.
Speaker 5: They're sitting at this long dining table and it's roped off,
Speaker 5: and so they sit down for dinner and then the
Speaker 5: restaurant fills up with people. There's people standing five deep
Speaker 5: in the restaurant just to watch Bill Walsh have dinner
Speaker 5: at this small town in Louisiana with with with Tom
Speaker 5: Holmo next to him as this rookie, as this rookie
Speaker 5: college football assistant coach.
Speaker 6: There's a bunch of.
Speaker 5: Other stuff that's really fine and cool. So I would
Speaker 5: I would encourage people to go check that out. And
Speaker 5: so it's up on ESPN dot com right now.
Speaker 1: Well, good stuff as always, Kyle, thanks for the time today, man,
Speaker 1: have a good week, all.
Speaker 5: Right, Sure thing?
Speaker 7: All right?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Kyle Bonner girl covers college ball for ESPN. Consistent guest
Speaker 1: on the show at Bonnagura, ESPN is where you find him.
Speaker 4: Next on the Drive, Tim McMahon dropping dimes for your
Speaker 4: NBA daily assists.
Speaker 5: Van McMahon Banman. That is in all the land. Textis
Speaker 5: flood as tickets Mud.
Speaker 2: He's and Man.
Speaker 6: McMahon Banman.
Speaker 4: Then Man.
Speaker 1: Day two NBA Free Agency. Nothing today regarding the Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz at least officially, but my goodness.
Speaker 2: A lot of movement, a lot of movement.
Speaker 1: Our next guest joins us on a weekly basis, who
Speaker 1: collective ESPN Our guide Tim mcmon Tim, Happy Tuesday, man.
Speaker 2: How are we doing.
Speaker 5: I'm doing all right?
Speaker 6: How about you?
Speaker 2: We're good, We're good. I guess we found out where
Speaker 2: the market is for Colin Sexton.
Speaker 6: Isy. Yeah. That I would say was a rather underwhelming
Speaker 6: trade for the Jazz, having to give up a second
Speaker 6: round pick along with Colin Secton to get a big
Speaker 6: man who's bounced trying to leave less than ideal. But
Speaker 6: I do think that it accomplishes a couple of goals
Speaker 6: for the Jazz, and that would be one to open
Speaker 6: up minutes for their young guards and two to put
Speaker 6: a product on the floor next year that's going to
Speaker 6: protect their top eight protected pick.
Speaker 1: And in addition, they essentially waved Jordan Clarkson. It was
Speaker 1: technically a buyout, and the buyout saved the Jazz a
Speaker 1: little bit of cash. And then Jordan, according to you
Speaker 1: guys over at ESPN, plans to signed with the Knicks
Speaker 1: when he clears waivers. And for the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: everybody around here loves him, as you know, but he's
Speaker 1: just not the player that he was when he won
Speaker 1: six Man of the Year under Quinn. Because where none
Speaker 1: of us are as young as we used to be.
Speaker 1: So your thoughts on the decision to move on from
Speaker 1: Jordan Clarkson.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and look, man, you know Clarkson had to basically
Speaker 6: sit out last season. I think that it was the
Speaker 6: right thing to do to let him get to a
Speaker 6: competitive situation. Clearly, if there was a robust trademarket for him,
Speaker 6: he would have been gone already. So instead of letting
Speaker 6: that drag out, they let him go before free agcing
Speaker 6: got started, and he found a home in New York.
Speaker 6: And it's the first clutch client to go to the
Speaker 6: Knicks in quite some time. Honestly, if there's a surprise involved,
Speaker 6: it's if the Knicks took on a clutch client. But
Speaker 6: hopefully Clarkson can go there, and obviously I'll have a
Speaker 6: limited role off the batch bit. Hopefully we can give
Speaker 6: him a little jolt of some offense off the bench
Speaker 6: and it's a good situation for all involved. But him
Speaker 6: sticking around in Utah for another years didn't make sense
Speaker 6: for anybody.
Speaker 2: You have an accurate frame of reference.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because Jordan is the longest tenured jazz man
Speaker 1: and the only holdover from the Dennis Lindsay Quinn Snyder group,
Speaker 1: and it seems like throughout this four year pivot rebuild,
Speaker 1: you know, wins and losses, it's the worst that it's
Speaker 1: ever been around here. He's kind of been the locker
Speaker 1: room vibe guy. It feels like a lot of people
Speaker 1: are actually pretty sad to see him go. Do you
Speaker 1: have any context or frame of reference for what he's
Speaker 1: meant to that organization?
Speaker 6: I mean, finally somebody who's interacting with Jordan Clarkson who
Speaker 6: doesn't like the guy.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, you.
Speaker 6: Know, like I mean, he's just he vibes is the
Speaker 6: right word. And he's also part of the one of
Speaker 6: the funnier Will Hardy stories that I can recall, and
Speaker 6: that's you know, Will Hardy comes in obviously it's his
Speaker 6: first head coaching job, and he's got some base schools
Speaker 6: that he wants to instill in. One of those rules
Speaker 6: is no jewelry of practice. And then Jordan Clarkson shows
Speaker 6: up and he's got diamonds and bended in his teeth,
Speaker 6: and and you know, Will had to kind of think
Speaker 6: about that and it's like, is that jewelry? Is that
Speaker 6: a violation of the rule? And then he just decided
Speaker 6: not to enforce no jewelry to practice for real quite
Speaker 6: as hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's just been interesting to see, you know,
Speaker 1: the social reaction and talk to a lot of people
Speaker 1: that kind of felt like this was the end of
Speaker 1: an era because he was the only holdover. But it's
Speaker 1: been a minute since we've had you on, so we
Speaker 1: get to talk to you about a couple of different
Speaker 1: jazz topics that have already gone down, and that is namely,
Speaker 1: Ace Bailey was the selection at five. And you know
Speaker 1: a lot of reporting and I certainly can't coroborate any
Speaker 1: of it that maybe Ace's camp did not prefer Utah,
Speaker 1: there was a and we had your buddy Tim Bontemps
Speaker 1: on yesterday, so we unpacked this stuff. There was a
Speaker 1: report from Tim and others at ESPN that his camp
Speaker 1: had told somebody in the top five not to draft him. Uh,
Speaker 1: clearly it wasn't the jazz. I thought, Brad, Actually we'll
Speaker 1: get to wal Clayton Junior in a minute. But Austin ainge,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I kind of like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is the dynamic, but whether or not
Speaker 1: East want to be here. Austin just said well, we
Speaker 1: think you're the best player, so we're taking you. He
Speaker 1: reported on time, he could not have been better for
Speaker 1: the pressure, and he is ready to go. So your
Speaker 1: thoughts on the Jazz taking as Bailey at five, I.
Speaker 6: Mean, listen, the indications certainly were that he would prefer
Speaker 6: to go to Washington. He he did not send out
Speaker 6: the message that he was good was going to Utah.
Speaker 6: I think the communication after the pick was very spotty,
Speaker 6: to put it politely, for a little bit there. But
Speaker 6: to your point, he showed up. He showed up ready
Speaker 6: to work. And it seems to me that he's gotten
Speaker 6: over wanting to kind of choose his destination in the draft,
Speaker 6: which is just not the way the draft works. He's
Speaker 6: going to get plenty Like listen, if he wants to
Speaker 6: be a star, he's going to have that opportunity in Utah.
Speaker 6: There's going to be plenty of opportunity for him, you know,
Speaker 6: to get shots, to have the ball in his hands,
Speaker 6: you know, to be developed and and so you know,
Speaker 6: life could be a lot worse. I think this is
Speaker 6: actually a really good situation for him, and you know
Speaker 6: he's not He didn't show up pouting, he didn't show
Speaker 6: up whining and crying or anything of that. Like I said,
Speaker 6: it seems like whatever disappointment there might have been on
Speaker 6: his end, he got over it, and he showed up
Speaker 6: ready to go to work and ready to be a pro,
Speaker 6: and that's all he can ask. You know. I think
Speaker 6: at some point he's going to have to really consider
Speaker 6: who he's listening to for advice and what their credentials are.
Speaker 6: It's it's very easy to be a teenage kid and
Speaker 6: have the wrong people in your ear and get steered
Speaker 6: down the wrong path. So hopefully he's going to be
Speaker 6: able to evaluate that and make some clear head decisions
Speaker 6: about what voices he's valuing that are in his ear
Speaker 6: and move forward. But hey, shut up, ready to go
Speaker 6: to work and looking forward to seeing him in the
Speaker 6: saw Lake City Semmer League.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good point about the reps.
Speaker 1: And I've been very adamant to remind the listeners that
Speaker 1: this is an eighteen year old young man who is
Speaker 1: surrounded by people who appeared to have never done this
Speaker 1: job before, so they're also learning on the fly. One
Speaker 1: follow up, have you been able to kind of learn
Speaker 1: the reasoning that he canceled all of his workouts? I mean,
Speaker 1: typically your antenna goes up and you think, Okay, he's
Speaker 1: been promised, and then he cancels Philly and you're like, wait,
Speaker 1: he hasn't been promised at one or two. So maybe
Speaker 1: Washington did have their eyes on him, and maybe they
Speaker 1: take him at six if the Jazz don't take him
Speaker 1: at five. But have you been able to learn why
Speaker 1: he's canceled all of his workouts?
Speaker 6: I don't have direct information that I can tell you.
Speaker 6: The belief throughout the league is that he wanted to
Speaker 6: go to Washington, and Washington wanted him to go there, gotcha,
Speaker 6: So you know, take that for what it's worth. Like
Speaker 6: I said, I can't sit here and tell you absolutely
Speaker 6: positively that's one hundred percent true. I can just tell
Speaker 6: you that that's what people around the league believed to
Speaker 6: be true.
Speaker 1: So I'm a little conflicted here because if Walt, and
Speaker 1: by the way, it's Walt he told us as an
Speaker 1: introductory press conference, it's not Walter. He wants us to
Speaker 1: call him Walt, So I'll call him what he wants
Speaker 1: us to call him. Like if Austin Ainge and the
Speaker 1: Jazz staff identified him as their guy, go get them.
Speaker 1: I have no issue with it. Then you think, okay,
Speaker 1: you traded twenty one and three second rounders to only
Speaker 1: move up three spots, which is not nothing. But again,
Speaker 1: if he's the guy, go get them right. So your
Speaker 1: thoughts on the trade they executed to go draft Wall
Speaker 1: Clayton Junior.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, if they're right, you're not gonna worry
Speaker 6: about the second round picks down the road. And they
Speaker 6: really liked this guy, and you know, I mean it's
Speaker 6: funny because in a lot of ways he's the polar
Speaker 6: opposite of Ace Bailey in terms of a prospect. You know,
Speaker 6: Ace Bailey is all about lot talent and potential, and
Speaker 6: he was this, you know, like five star recruit coming out,
Speaker 6: was pegged as a top lottery pick. You know, when
Speaker 6: he's sixteen years old, all those kind of things were
Speaker 6: old Walt. You know, he's a guy who he went
Speaker 6: to Sienna and he got screamed at by a Patino
Speaker 6: for a couple of years, came off the benches freshman year.
Speaker 6: You know, I had to earn a starting spot there.
Speaker 6: Patino leaves, transfers to Florida. You know, four year guy,
Speaker 6: a total winner in college where obviously you know, Rutgers
Speaker 6: with with Bailey and Harper didn't win last year, won
Speaker 6: a championship at Florida. You know, comes comes to Utah
Speaker 6: obviously much more mature, you know what I mean, just older,
Speaker 6: more mature, more experience, an adult, approven winner who doesn't
Speaker 6: necessarily have that jump off the page, you know, the measurables,
Speaker 6: the athleticism, all that kind of thing. But there's there
Speaker 6: are you know, I've seen them compared to Brunson. Not
Speaker 6: not identical as players, certainly, but in terms of some
Speaker 6: of the background stuff very learn.
Speaker 1: All Right, I'm not going to ask you about sphem
Speaker 1: kay Luke's contract being picked up, So let's move over
Speaker 1: to what could be next for the Jazz. And the
Speaker 1: one name that I think everybody's honed in on now
Speaker 1: is John Collins with a twenty six point five million
Speaker 1: dollar expiring deal.
Speaker 2: It was not expiring last year, it is now.
Speaker 1: And you know, there's an argument to be made that
Speaker 1: the season he had last year may have been his
Speaker 1: best as a pro, or maybe second to the season
Speaker 1: he had before he's got his big contract. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, Tim, I feel like every time I pull
Speaker 1: up some sort of rumor site or see a tweet,
Speaker 1: regarding the Jazz potential next move, it lands on John
Speaker 1: any inside on what could be next there.
Speaker 6: Well, he is certainly available in the trade market, but
Speaker 6: so was Colin Sexton. Obviously Clarkson was for a while.
Speaker 6: I don't know that he would be a buyout candidate,
Speaker 6: but you know, it would make sense if there's nothing
Speaker 6: that is appealing in the trade market. I did, and
Speaker 6: you know, look could be traded. I don't think you're
Speaker 6: going to get a significant hale in return. If that
Speaker 6: was the case, you probably would have already happened, or
Speaker 6: it would have happened midway through last season. But you know, certainly,
Speaker 6: I think we all understand that where the Jazz are
Speaker 6: and they're rebuild, where Collins is in his career, that
Speaker 6: Collins being in Utah this year probably isn't in anybody's
Speaker 6: best interest.
Speaker 2: Well said, all right, we can move off the Jazz.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some Western Conference teams that have really,
Speaker 1: in my estimation, done an excellent job of I don't know,
Speaker 1: closing the gap between themselves and Okay, so you're just
Speaker 1: taking a step forward. So I'm just going to ask
Speaker 1: you about a team and I just want your thoughts.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the Houston Rockets.
Speaker 6: Yeah, obviously starting with a KD trade that that was
Speaker 6: a big swing, a win now move. That that's a
Speaker 6: move you make that said, hey, we're serious about contending
Speaker 6: right now. They're able to do it without really shortening
Speaker 6: their runaway all. You know, jayman Green got moved in
Speaker 6: the trade, but he's probably fourth, fifth, sixth in terms
Speaker 6: of the young guys that were most important in the
Speaker 6: future of the franchise. And then I'll be honest with
Speaker 6: you that the Capella thing kind of caught me off guard.
Speaker 6: They want to be able to have two bigs available
Speaker 6: at all times, and obviously Steven Mavams going to miss
Speaker 6: some time. Finney Smith though, here's the thing. The Rockets
Speaker 6: both went out and drastically upgraded the go to guy.
Speaker 6: They got a Hall of Fame go to guy, and
Speaker 6: they also leaned into the style of play that they
Speaker 6: want that big, just nasty, rough, physical defense, rebound, all
Speaker 6: that kind of stuff, bringing in Phinney Smith, bringing in Capella.
Speaker 6: So I think they're the second best team in the
Speaker 6: Western Conference.
Speaker 1: That's actually where I was going to ask you, because
Speaker 1: Vegas has them as two now, but he answered it.
Speaker 1: So let's move on and let me let me ask
Speaker 1: you about what the Nuggets are doing, and just coming
Speaker 1: across the wires, they've added another rotational piece. And I
Speaker 1: don't know that I'm a huge Tim Hardaway junior guy,
Speaker 1: but you could do worse for like your ninth or
Speaker 1: tenth man. But what do you make of the way
Speaker 1: they've gone about their off season so far?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I really liked what they did in terms of like
Speaker 6: the short term with Michael Porter junior, trading him for
Speaker 6: Cam Johnson now, but twenty thirty two pick could end
Speaker 6: up being a steep price. That's a steep price after
Speaker 6: Jokers prime. To me, you got a comfortable player, It's
Speaker 6: not an upgrade, probably a more versatile, well rounded player,
Speaker 6: and you saved a ton of money which created flexibility.
Speaker 6: And then you know, I thought they might just try
Speaker 6: to dust the tax, but they brought him, you know,
Speaker 6: to Saling Tunas today. You know Hardley's a minimum guy,
Speaker 6: but you know Bruce Brown coming back to the minimum.
Speaker 6: I mean those are between Valan Tunas, Bruce Brown and Hardaway.
Speaker 6: Those are three proven vets for the bench. And if
Speaker 6: you know, if one of the young guys like plays
Speaker 6: hardly have a spot in rotation. Great, but it's not
Speaker 6: you know, the volume movement, shooters around jokers not a
Speaker 6: bad thing to have.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Not a jazz story, but a local story is Dame
Speaker 1: Lillard plays played his college ball up north of Weaver State,
Speaker 1: and you know, when you see the news, the optics
Speaker 1: are like, wait, how do you cut Dame Lillard?
Speaker 2: How do you cut Damian Lillard? Like?
Speaker 1: And then optically, that's not a great look for who
Speaker 1: Dame is historically is a Hall of Fame player. But
Speaker 1: he will get his money and he will decide where
Speaker 1: the either the final or the next stands of his
Speaker 1: NBA career will take place. As a result of the
Speaker 1: deal that Milwaukee made to stretch him, they bring in
Speaker 1: Miles Turner, which is an interesting dynamic because, as you know,
Speaker 1: the Bucks and the Pacers aren't necessarily the best of friends.
Speaker 1: So what do you make of how Milwaukee went about this.
Speaker 6: Massive blow to the Indiana Pacers. Obviously I get the
Speaker 6: fit of Turner with the honest Turners, basically a younger
Speaker 6: Springer version of Brook Lopez. I understand like the logic
Speaker 6: behind the waving stretch with Dane. He's going to miss
Speaker 6: all next season you don't know what he's gonna be
Speaker 6: when he comes back. Tell you who that man paint
Speaker 6: a guy one hundred and thirteen million dollars to go away,
Speaker 6: that's who. That's tough. And basically the Dame trade ended
Speaker 6: up being a disaster for Milwaukee. You know, they're still
Speaker 6: out draft capital in the future. It didn't produce a
Speaker 6: single playoff series victory, and now he's on their books
Speaker 6: for the next five years at twenty two and a
Speaker 6: half million per I get it. I don't think that
Speaker 6: bringing the Miles Turner just vaults the Bucks in the
Speaker 6: contender status. And he likes Kevin Porter junior starting point guard.
Speaker 6: They still got something to figure out there. I'm not
Speaker 6: sure what that answer is going to be, but they're
Speaker 6: going to need a better answer than that. And as
Speaker 6: far as Dan goes like it's you know, it's a
Speaker 6: little smudge on his resume, but if he never scores
Speaker 6: another point, he's a Hall of Famer and for him,
Speaker 6: he gets his money. And it's not like he wanted
Speaker 6: to be in Milwaukee. He'd made the best of a
Speaker 6: situation he did not want to be in. So now
Speaker 6: he gets to choose his next spot and he gets
Speaker 6: to choose. You know, probably does he want to sign
Speaker 6: with somebody this year in a two year deal and
Speaker 6: rehab under their watch, or does he want to kind
Speaker 6: of play it out, rehab on his own and be
Speaker 6: able to evaluate the situation. You know, maybe he's in
Speaker 6: late this season or next summer. So my understanding is
Speaker 6: Dame is not heartbroken about this development.
Speaker 1: Only because I've been asked ten times today and I
Speaker 1: believe the answer is emphatically no, because I don't think
Speaker 1: it makes sense for either side. But every time anybody
Speaker 1: with a local tie who is good becomes available, a
Speaker 1: lot of people out here says, Okay, the jaz should
Speaker 1: go get him. There's not anything that makes sense about
Speaker 1: Dame Lillard to the Jazz, right.
Speaker 6: The Jazz just bought out Jordan Clarks and then traded
Speaker 6: Colin Section for I'm not very good player to open
Speaker 6: up minutes for these young guys that they've a And yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean that really doesn't First of all, forget about
Speaker 6: it making sense for the Jazz, how does that make
Speaker 6: sense for Damian Lillard. It doesn't like there's one thing
Speaker 6: he really wants to do that's won a championship. At
Speaker 6: this point in his career, and I don't think coming
Speaker 6: to Utah as there in a rebuild would be a
Speaker 6: very good route to that.
Speaker 1: I just needed the Tim mcman approval for my opinion,
Speaker 1: so I appreciate that. You know, a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: maybe a month ago, we were discussing just the potential
Speaker 1: of Collin Sexton to Dallas because they needed a guard
Speaker 1: while Kyrie got healthy. Well, they went a different direction.
Speaker 1: The de Angelo Russell was the decision. And it's not
Speaker 1: a bad value play, you know, because he's not going
Speaker 1: to be a long term answer. But I'm going to
Speaker 1: find this team really interesting this year. So I will
Speaker 1: ask you about what this transaction says to you and
Speaker 1: what you're expecting from the MAVs this year.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think with Sexton is, look, the Hornets
Speaker 6: had a salary of that size. They did not mind
Speaker 6: at all parting with the Matticts. Wanted to keep all
Speaker 6: the guys who were at that sort of a number.
Speaker 6: So that's where that got, uh, you know, Wonkey and
Speaker 6: dan Ta Russell. Look, Dangel on a max that he's
Speaker 6: been on is a disaster. I mean it's a terrible
Speaker 6: value tax payer mid level. Okay, you know, he's a
Speaker 6: flawed player. He's not really a point guard. He's more
Speaker 6: of a league guard. They're going to give Cooper Flag
Speaker 6: every opportunity to prove that he can handle a lot
Speaker 6: of the point duties as a rookie. And you know, basically,
Speaker 6: Daniel Russell his jobs to come in to get buckets
Speaker 6: in the starting lineups the first half the season and
Speaker 6: then hopefully transition to a six man role when Kyrie
Speaker 6: comes back. You know, it's it is a little tough
Speaker 6: to make the Mantra defense wins championships kind of your
Speaker 6: repeat line as a general manager, and then your most
Speaker 6: significant moves of the off season, aside from drafting Hell
Speaker 6: with dependent number one overall, is signing D'Angel Russell. But again,
Speaker 6: this is a team that they needed shooting, they needed playmaking.
Speaker 6: You know, they need a guy who can create his
Speaker 6: own shot, and Deangel Russell can do all those things
Speaker 6: that they at a price point where you're not going
Speaker 6: to get at all. You know, if he was a
Speaker 6: really good defender, he wouldn't be available at that price point.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you about Lebron because I feel obligated,
Speaker 1: but it's just kind of a weird story to understand
Speaker 1: as far as how this thing is playing out. He
Speaker 1: picked up his option fifty two point six, but he's
Speaker 1: also monitoring what the Lakers do, contemplating his future. According
Speaker 1: to several reports, I just feel like Lebron will be
Speaker 1: playing for the Lakers next year next to Luka Doncic,
Speaker 1: but they've got work to do via free agency that
Speaker 1: they have not come close to being able to execute.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this is new ownership,
Speaker 1: but what's the what's the take on the Lebron Lakers stuff?
Speaker 6: Well, and then Rich Paul went on the record with
Speaker 6: a very like subject to interpretation type of statement, but
Speaker 6: you know, essentially indicating them, Hey, Lebron's opting in for
Speaker 6: the money and we'll figure out if he really wants
Speaker 6: to be there. But they understand crazing the guy making
Speaker 6: fifty two point six million dollars to his preferred destination
Speaker 6: is not easy or in a lot of situations, is
Speaker 6: not even really possible. But in part because if you're
Speaker 6: going to trade a guy at that salary, a lot
Speaker 6: of guys gonna have to come back, and then it
Speaker 6: might not be a situation you want to be a
Speaker 6: part of anymore. There are people around the league who
Speaker 6: are like, is Lebron trying to bully his way to
Speaker 6: a buyout from the Lakers, And if you're sitting in
Speaker 6: Rob Lincoln jenie Buss's chair, the answer to that is
Speaker 6: just sorry, No, we're paying fifty two point six million dollars.
Speaker 6: You'll be playing basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers this year,
Speaker 6: really looking forward to it, and then we're doing our
Speaker 6: best upbade the roster. I'll see you when training camp starts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of how I read it as well,
Speaker 1: all right, before I say you lose, you know, it
Speaker 1: was interesting because Quinn had Nikhil Alexander Walker here and
Speaker 1: didn't play him, and it felt like when he had
Speaker 1: opportunities like Quinn just preferred Royce and I wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't entirely on board with it. But Quinn's the
Speaker 1: coach and he knows more than I do. Well, he'll
Speaker 1: have another opportunity to get to know him a little
Speaker 1: bit and maybe it'll work out differently because he had
Speaker 1: a great stretch of Minnesota. Luke Canard, in addition to
Speaker 1: Kristaps Porzingis, the East is wide open and the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Hawks might have something to say about it.
Speaker 6: I'll be honest with you, I had completely forgotten that
Speaker 6: Quinn very briefly had nikhil Alexander Walker in Utah. That
Speaker 6: is interesting. I'm totally forgotten about that. Obviously, Royce O'Neil
Speaker 6: was a proven commodity with somebody who'd earned Quinn's trust.
Speaker 6: And the circumstances are much different because Alexander Walker has
Speaker 6: proven himself as a high level role player, not just
Speaker 6: a three and D guy, but a guy who can
Speaker 6: you know, make some plays off the dribble, you know, initiate,
Speaker 6: facilitate some and clearly was quite valued by the Atlanta Hawks.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, he's coming in sixty two million
Speaker 6: over four years. And I agree with you. I think
Speaker 6: the Hawks have had a heck of a summer in
Speaker 6: a wide open Eastern Conference. I think they are the
Speaker 6: most improved team. I think they've positioned themselves to, you know,
Speaker 6: potentially have home court advantage in the first round. And
Speaker 6: you know, you know, we can talk about the Knicks
Speaker 6: and the and the Calves. Is the favorites in the
Speaker 6: East going in the next year, but it's wide open
Speaker 6: and the Hawks are one of the teams. I think
Speaker 6: it positioned themselves to be in the mix.
Speaker 1: Dam you're the man. Keep up the great work. It's
Speaker 1: been a fun couple of days. Have a good week
Speaker 1: and on chat.
Speaker 6: Soon appreciate you, brother.
Speaker 1: And McMahon covers the NBA for ESPN and he is
Speaker 1: their jazz guy. When the Jazz are in a different
Speaker 1: spot than they are right now, how we just how
Speaker 1: about we just say it like that.
Speaker 4: He's the pride of Norwich, Connecticut and an adopted son
Speaker 4: of Salt Lake City. After forty years with the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 4: there's no one better to talk some hoops. Richard Smitty
Speaker 4: Smith is back on the Drive on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 1: Well, little breaking news about a commit for Utah football
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. Kelvin Obots the number nine overall
Speaker 1: recruit in the twenty twenty six class. This kid is
Speaker 1: legit offensive tackle. We'll see what that does to Utah's
Speaker 1: recruiting rankings. Of course, that's not for two years. There's
Speaker 1: still football left to be played before we get to
Speaker 1: know these young men. It is day two of NBA
Speaker 1: free agency. Wimbledon's going on.
Speaker 2: It feels like a.
Speaker 1: Great data Richard Smitty Smith Liven Studio. You've been catching
Speaker 1: any of the tennis I have?
Speaker 8: You know, the Wimbledon started Sunday and today earlier today,
Speaker 8: Coco Golf number two seed and the women's singles draw
Speaker 8: lost right after winning the Rolling Garros in Paris, and
Speaker 8: and so it's a big, big loss on the women's
Speaker 8: side right off the bat in the tournament. But that's
Speaker 8: a big different spence between playing on clay and playing
Speaker 8: on grass. It's a it's a major, major difference in
Speaker 8: the way you play the game. And they they make
Speaker 8: that transition all the time in the spring, you know,
Speaker 8: from from the middle of June, you know, through the
Speaker 8: through the middle of July and going on grass over
Speaker 8: in Europe, and it's just it's a tougher game, it's
Speaker 8: a different game.
Speaker 1: Cocoa Goff became the third woman in the Open era
Speaker 1: to lose in the first round at Wimbledon after winning
Speaker 1: the championship of the French Open, So or a pretty
Speaker 1: rare thing. Novak Djokovic just one his ninety ninth Wimbledon match,
Speaker 1: which is third all time. So some fun tennis going
Speaker 1: on over at Wimbledon. Is that your is Wimbledon your
Speaker 1: favorite major championship.
Speaker 8: Well, no, I mean I I enjoy I just enjoy
Speaker 8: the tennis and you know it all. Had never been
Speaker 8: to Wimbledon. My wife Linda's been there, and you know,
Speaker 8: my brother in law and my nephew have been there.
Speaker 8: And I've been to Australian Open and the US Open
Speaker 8: a one hundred times over the because we go back
Speaker 8: every year for the US Open, but Indian Wells of
Speaker 8: course the last several years. But I haven't been to Wimbledon.
Speaker 8: That's on my list, and I can never go Spence
Speaker 8: because Wimbledon is always this time of year. So working
Speaker 8: for the Jazz, it was always the draft, going right
Speaker 8: into free agency, going right into summer league, so it
Speaker 8: was never a time we were able to go and travel
Speaker 8: and do that. So I'm looking forward to trying to
Speaker 8: do that in the next few years. But it's a fun,
Speaker 8: you know, traditional place. It's one of the one of
Speaker 8: the grand spots obviously in the sport.
Speaker 2: Of tennis for sure. All right, let's do the Jazz
Speaker 2: stuff this segment.
Speaker 1: We'll save the next segment for some of the big
Speaker 1: picture NBA free agency storylines. Of course, it's day two
Speaker 1: of NBA free agency and Smitty, You've been coming on
Speaker 1: the show now for a while and it feels like
Speaker 1: names like Sexton and Jordan Clarkson have come up and
Speaker 1: potential trade talks and conversations. Well, we learned what the
Speaker 1: market is for those two players, and the answer is
Speaker 1: not great. So let's start with the Sexton move. They
Speaker 1: had to attach a second round pick to the deal
Speaker 1: to get him to Charlotte in exchange for use of Nurkic,
Speaker 1: who is a VET that is a backup big at
Speaker 1: this point, what do you make of the deal, dude,
Speaker 1: san Colin Sexton and a second to Charlotte.
Speaker 8: Well, first of all, I'm a Sexton fan, and so
Speaker 8: I'm the wrong guy to ask, probably, you know, in
Speaker 8: that regard because he's even though I get, you know,
Speaker 8: they just drafted the Clayton kid and he's probably gonna
Speaker 8: take a bulk of those minutes, and they're still trying
Speaker 8: to figure out what can't they George is and and
Speaker 8: you know what the Williams kid is, and and a
Speaker 8: Collier and all that. So I get that that that
Speaker 8: part of it, But for me, Sexton is one of
Speaker 8: the guys who has proven he can play in this league.
Speaker 8: He was, He's gotten more efficient every year they been
Speaker 8: in the league. This past year, I thought he was
Speaker 8: very efficient, played a very tight game during the course
Speaker 8: of the year on a team that wasn't winning, in
Speaker 8: a team that didn't really care about winning, and he
Speaker 8: was one of the few guys who would go out
Speaker 8: and compete every night, in my opinion. And so, you know,
Speaker 8: I understand they're trying to get off his money, and
Speaker 8: I understand they're trying to get the young guys, you know,
Speaker 8: the playing time, and I get that part of it.
Speaker 8: But when you see him moving a guy who's actually
Speaker 8: proven that that he's has some value in the league
Speaker 8: in terms of how he plays and his production level,
Speaker 8: that's that's sometimes a head scratcher to me. But you know, okay,
Speaker 8: that's that's the way they're they're choosing to do their
Speaker 8: business right now.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised that they couldn't get more value for
Speaker 1: him or do you feel like they just wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, find a new home for him and clear
Speaker 1: up time for the young gar.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm not sure how to gauge that spence. You know,
Speaker 8: I think he's more valuable than that myself. But okay,
Speaker 8: they maybe they had their own time for they wanted
Speaker 8: to get out from under it before uh the free
Speaker 8: agency stuff started so they could figure out where they
Speaker 8: were at money wise and whatnot. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 8: convinced that Nurkic is gonna be part of uh, you know,
Speaker 8: what they're gonna try and do next year. I don't
Speaker 8: know if that was, you know, I'm not sure what
Speaker 8: the play was there, to be honest with you, unless
Speaker 8: unless they like Nurkic for some reason that that I
Speaker 8: don't see, and yeah, and uh you know, or they
Speaker 8: think he's gonna have more value to some playoff type
Speaker 8: team come February during the trade deadline, where somebody's gonna want,
Speaker 8: uh you know, a big that they can put in
Speaker 8: a lineup during rotations in the in the playoffs. Maybe
Speaker 8: that's what the the the longer play is here. But
Speaker 8: of course he's on an expiring contract next year as well,
Speaker 8: so you know, a worst case scenario, they have him
Speaker 8: on the team for this coming season, they get off
Speaker 8: him next summer, they got that money to use next
Speaker 8: summer and free agency stuff and they and they move on.
Speaker 8: So well, I think the whole thing with The Jazz
Speaker 8: is just a big, evolving, moving puzzle that they're going
Speaker 8: to constantly keep moving guys in and out of during
Speaker 8: this summer and into the fall and even during next season.
Speaker 8: I think these next twelve months are all to me
Speaker 8: going to be part of a big experiment under the
Speaker 8: Austin Ange direction to see how they set themselves up
Speaker 8: for the summer of twenty six and then moving forward.
Speaker 8: That's what That's what it feels like to me.
Speaker 1: So they essentially cut Jordan. They essentially cut Jordan Clarkson.
Speaker 1: Technically it was a buyout. If the numbers have in
Speaker 1: front of me are correct. That saved the Jazz about
Speaker 1: a million dollars in cash. So I have a couple
Speaker 1: of questions here. The reaction to the news that Jordan
Speaker 1: is no longer a jazz man. It's been really interesting
Speaker 1: to follow. People are genuinely sad that he's leaving. The
Speaker 1: trade that you guys made for him in retrospect was
Speaker 1: an excellent deal. You moved on them a couple of
Speaker 1: second rounders to Cleveland for Jordan comes here, wins six
Speaker 1: Man of the Year, played really well for Quinn, last
Speaker 1: holdover from that group. So just wonder what your thoughts
Speaker 1: are that they've decided to move on from him in
Speaker 1: the way that they did. He's going to be a
Speaker 1: nick and maybe you can provide some color and context
Speaker 1: as far as what he meant to the Jazz organization.
Speaker 8: Well, I think that I think it's not surprising to me.
Speaker 8: I think they've been trying to do that for a
Speaker 8: year now. I think they finally got to it. You know,
Speaker 8: they found away with Jordan. They couldn't do anything during
Speaker 8: the season last year. They couldn't find anybody to bite
Speaker 8: on this deal that had you know, obviously last season
Speaker 8: in this coming season under contract, you know, added add
Speaker 8: an okay number in today's NBA terms at fourteen million
Speaker 8: a year. You know, I'm not surprised at all that
Speaker 8: they you know, they decided to move on from him.
Speaker 8: You know, it was just a matter of getting him,
Speaker 8: figuring out a way to do what they could find
Speaker 8: a trade partner they liked apparently, so they worked a
Speaker 8: deal with him to get a buyout so he could
Speaker 8: get the freedom to move to a team where he
Speaker 8: feels he can add something to a contending team and
Speaker 8: give himself a little bit more spark and a little
Speaker 8: more life. On the court for a team that's trying
Speaker 8: to win and trying to be competitive night in the
Speaker 8: night out, and you know, and the Jazz get out
Speaker 8: from some money. And that's the whole play here. And look,
Speaker 8: that was the play really when they signed him to
Speaker 8: this deal that they did a couple of years ago,
Speaker 8: because they front loaded that deal at twenty four I
Speaker 8: think it was at twenty five the first year, and
Speaker 8: then fourteen and fourteen, so the whole deal was set
Speaker 8: up so that they could move him at some point
Speaker 8: during the last two years. It just took him a
Speaker 8: year to figure out how to do it. They didn't
Speaker 8: get a trade partner, so they did the buy out thing.
Speaker 8: Saved themselves a little money. Clarkson gets to decide where
Speaker 8: he's gonna go instead of being put in a trade,
Speaker 8: so it kind of works out for everybody. I'm always
Speaker 8: surprised players are willing to give up, you know, any money,
Speaker 8: you know, in some kind of a buyout situation. I've
Speaker 8: never understood why players would do that, but I guess
Speaker 8: that's what you do when you just get to some
Speaker 8: point in your life where, oh I have enough money,
Speaker 8: that's okay, I'll just leave some on the table. You
Speaker 8: can take it and I'm going to go out the
Speaker 8: side door. Okay, I guess.
Speaker 1: And it really just begs the question as far as
Speaker 1: what's next, and to underscore the points that you're essentially making.
Speaker 1: It just it feels like Austin as the primary decision
Speaker 1: maker has just decided they're going to clear the deck
Speaker 1: and next year it's weird smitty and we should acknowledge
Speaker 1: that Austin is a recent higher So some of the
Speaker 1: messaging from the front office last year probably is not
Speaker 1: the messaging from the front office this year, but one
Speaker 1: of their cliched lines and I heard Xanik say this,
Speaker 1: I heard Danny say this, I heard Will say this
Speaker 1: is they kept saying pups can't raise pups. Okay, so
Speaker 1: last year was kind of like Patty Mills Drew u
Speaker 1: Banks will bring in some locker room vets to help
Speaker 1: these young players learn how to be pros. Feels like
Speaker 1: there's a paradigm shift. It feels like pups this year
Speaker 1: will very much be raising pups because it looks like
Speaker 1: what we're going to see is just all these young
Speaker 1: kids playing a lot of minutes.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, I imagine they will and uh, you know,
Speaker 8: there's something that said to be said for veteran leadership.
Speaker 8: They're helping young guys learn how to do it. I guess.
Speaker 8: I mean, look, we just Joe Ingles is going to
Speaker 8: go back to Minnesota another three and we know Joe,
Speaker 8: you know, I'm not sure he has anything left in
Speaker 8: the guess tank, but but obviously Minnesota sees him as
Speaker 8: being a valuable member of their group. With this group,
Speaker 8: with the Jazz, I don't know, you know, the Patty
Speaker 8: Mills thing that drew you Banks, and I don't. I don't.
Speaker 8: I never got that anyway, especially when they're they're you know,
Speaker 8: they're everybody knows that they're not trying to win games.
Speaker 8: So that makes it difficult if you're a veteran to
Speaker 8: try and get to get the point across the guys
Speaker 8: about you know, this is how we conduct ourselves. This
Speaker 8: is how we go about our business every day, working
Speaker 8: hard in practice, staying late, arriving early in the weight room,
Speaker 8: whatever it is. And and and guys are asking in
Speaker 8: the middle of the game like like, uh, you know,
Speaker 8: to do what what are we doing? We we're gonna
Speaker 8: lose by twenty anyway, What's what's the difference. So that
Speaker 8: that's a very tough, uh complex thing that I think
Speaker 8: is just very difficult for an organization to manage, you know,
Speaker 8: and keep everybody going the right direction. You're either you're
Speaker 8: either trying to put your best foot forward and you're
Speaker 8: trying to to to to do the best you can
Speaker 8: every night, or or you got a different agenda and
Speaker 8: guys learn learn things differently, and they they certainly uh
Speaker 8: get can get into good habits, and they also can
Speaker 8: get into bad habits on what your organization is asking
Speaker 8: you to do from one moment to the next. So
Speaker 8: you know, we'll see, I mean, the Jazz just they're
Speaker 8: they're in this great uh flux area right now, and
Speaker 8: they've got new new sheriff in town, as they say,
Speaker 8: and you know, we'll see again. But Austin ain't just
Speaker 8: isn't trying to pull the Donald Trump thing. You know,
Speaker 8: he's not like what man on an island trying to
Speaker 8: run everything. You know, He's got valuable guys with him
Speaker 8: in the room, not the least of which of course
Speaker 8: is his dad. And he's got a very involved owner
Speaker 8: and so that plays into it somehow. And uh but
Speaker 8: they got a lot of guys in there voicing, you know,
Speaker 8: opinions about what they should do and how they should
Speaker 8: be handling their guys and all that. But it's no uh,
Speaker 8: it's no secret and it shouldn't be that that that
Speaker 8: they're gonna play their young guys a lot of minutes
Speaker 8: and have them in some kind of set rotation as
Speaker 8: the season starts in terms of minutes and responsibilities and seeing,
Speaker 8: you know, what these guys can can figure out going forward.
Speaker 2: So it brings us to John Collins.
Speaker 1: That's the next name tone in on, and we'll get
Speaker 1: to some others because I honestly don't know how this
Speaker 1: is going to play out. Twenty six point five mil
Speaker 1: expiring this year. This is the first time they've had
Speaker 1: him with an expiring contract. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: of that plays into the ability to move on from him.
Speaker 1: You can make an argument, Smitty that last year was
Speaker 1: his best year as a pro, maybe second to the
Speaker 1: year he had in Atlanta before he got his big contract.
Speaker 1: But if you're if you're a GM and you're running
Speaker 1: a team and Austin calls you and says, what about
Speaker 1: John Collins, what do you say?
Speaker 8: Well, first of all, you know John Collins has a
Speaker 8: big number for what John Collins does.
Speaker 2: Yep, right now in the NA Now.
Speaker 8: He played very well last year my opinion, on a
Speaker 8: team that wasn't trying to play well. So I give
Speaker 8: him credit for that. He's a he's a big guy.
Speaker 8: He's a guy who can play inside and outside. It
Speaker 8: depends on the team, It depends on who else they
Speaker 8: got on the floor with him playing. You know, I
Speaker 8: have to I have to admit I liked him better
Speaker 8: last year than I did the previous couple of years.
Speaker 8: I was never a big John Collins guy. I always thought,
Speaker 8: you know, he played in second gear and never really
Speaker 8: was busting it out on the floor. But but last
Speaker 8: year I thought he played well, uh, you know, for
Speaker 8: for most of the year on a team where it
Speaker 8: was difficult to play well and to put your best
Speaker 8: foot forward. And so you know, they're gonna have to
Speaker 8: try and find a team that that is willing to
Speaker 8: uh to take on his money. I don't know who
Speaker 8: wants to do that. The Jazz may have to try
Speaker 8: and do something, you know, where they're willing to take
Speaker 8: on keep you know, taking on some of the money
Speaker 8: and do some kind of a deal with that with somebody.
Speaker 8: It's gonna be difficult to move him, I think, merely
Speaker 8: because of the money that he makes. So they're gonna
Speaker 8: have to have something involving his money and how they
Speaker 8: handled that if they in fact want to move on
Speaker 8: from him.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you about the other transactions just because
Speaker 1: they were made. We might have ten seconds for each
Speaker 1: of them. They wave Johnny, they wave Johnny Jews.
Speaker 8: Come see now, now that shows you're not being serious.
Speaker 8: What do you watch stuff like that? Do you know?
Speaker 1: Like I mean, well, I mean was there did you
Speaker 1: think there was a place for him at the end
Speaker 1: of the bench.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, I've never been at Johnny Jusion guy.
Speaker 8: You know, all these G League guys they've been playing
Speaker 8: the last year or so. You know again, you know,
Speaker 8: we can debate that all we want about, you know,
Speaker 8: why they have a G League team if they're using
Speaker 8: the Jazz as their G League team. But okay, that's
Speaker 8: that's what they're the route that they're choosing to go,
Speaker 8: and so far the fans are going along with it
Speaker 8: because the fans are paying full boat money to come
Speaker 8: see a G League team play on the floor. Okay,
Speaker 8: you know, you guys want to do that, go ahead,
Speaker 8: you know, I don't know how long that will last,
Speaker 8: you know, but that that's what they've been doing. And
Speaker 8: guys like juw Zang and U Banks and Micah Potter
Speaker 8: and whatever, they're just you know, they're they're like seat
Speaker 8: fillers at the Oscar Oscars to me, you know, I mean,
Speaker 8: they're just not you're not getting anywhere. You're spinning your tires,
Speaker 8: that's my opinion. Now that's probably why I'm sitting in
Speaker 8: the radio station instead of being over in their meetings,
Speaker 8: you know. So that's you know, that's the way they're
Speaker 8: they're they're going about their business.
Speaker 1: Oh you just gave me ninety seconds on Johnny jew Zang.
Speaker 1: I didn't think we'd be able to do that.
Speaker 8: Hey, you know, well look he was very good. He
Speaker 8: had a very nice career at UCLA, you know, after
Speaker 8: transferring from Kentucky and and played himself well and got
Speaker 8: himself some NBA money. Okay, I don't know if he'll
Speaker 8: get an NBA job. He's really a EuroLeague A type
Speaker 8: player to me, and where you can have a nice career,
Speaker 8: you know, as we've seen a lot of our local guys,
Speaker 8: you know, Jac Carroll being one of them having a
Speaker 8: terrific career Real Madrid for a decade, and Johnny Juzang
Speaker 8: should be over there, you know, with one of those teams.
Speaker 8: That's my opinion. But you know, I'm not his agent,
Speaker 8: and and I'm certainly not in an NBA team that
Speaker 8: might try and and give him another chance.
Speaker 1: And equally compelling news they've guaranteed the deals Fema Kai
Speaker 1: Luke this year.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and I don't know what to say about that either, Right,
Speaker 8: that's another that's another placeholder. I'm not I'm not sure
Speaker 8: what that what that's about. He's probably a good guy,
Speaker 8: you know. I mean again, I watched him play when
Speaker 8: he was fifteen sixteen over in Europe. He hasn't gotten
Speaker 8: any better. He's just, you know, he's just a guy
Speaker 8: out there every now and then he makes a couple
Speaker 8: of shots in the game. Okay, and uh and again.
Speaker 8: But he's a guy who could be having a much
Speaker 8: bigger career and a more substantial one if he chose
Speaker 8: to play over in Europe where he's from. And he
Speaker 8: may end up doing that at some point, but the
Speaker 8: Jazz have decided at least to guarantee his kind of
Speaker 8: now that may be something where they just want to
Speaker 8: keep his contract, you know, in their back pocket in
Speaker 8: case they have to use it as a filler in
Speaker 8: some kind of other move where they have to either
Speaker 8: take back money or give money or something like that.
Speaker 8: So they could also be a play like that down
Speaker 8: the road as well.
Speaker 1: All right, So it brings us into this space where,
Speaker 1: you know, all we can do is read the riding
Speaker 1: on the wall here and try to read the tea
Speaker 1: leaves where Clarkson is gone, Sexton is gone every time
Speaker 1: I open up anything about what could be next. And
Speaker 1: the jazzer mentioned everyone says they're talking to teams about
Speaker 1: John Collins. Do you think they're talking to teams about marketing?
Speaker 1: Do you think they're having conversations about Lowry? I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're having any active conversations. I haven't heard
Speaker 1: anything from any of my sources around the NBA about
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff going on. I think they would
Speaker 1: certainly entertain any conversation about any guy based on the
Speaker 1: current status of the team. And that is something that
Speaker 1: there's still there's still at the starting line and they're
Speaker 1: still waiting, you know, for the gun to go off
Speaker 1: to start the race, and they're still trying to formulate
Speaker 1: what they're they're team looks like in that regard. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think marketing is untouchable. I don't
Speaker 1: think Kessel is untouchable. You know, any of their guys
Speaker 1: certainly would be in a conversation based on what other
Speaker 1: teams are looking at or what they would have to offer,
Speaker 1: and how the how the Jazz headed up now by
Speaker 1: the main decision maker being Austin Age, how they view
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do in terms of the overall
Speaker 1: makeup of their group.
Speaker 2: Hello, so I have the I have the Jazz payroll
Speaker 2: in front of me.
Speaker 8: Okay, I got to ask.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask a question before I ask what
Speaker 1: I want to ask to make sure that my understanding
Speaker 1: is correct is correct? Is it possible that they have
Speaker 1: a team option on Taylor Hendricks after this year?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Well yeah, Well, the way that the NBA contracts work,
Speaker 8: the rookie contracts are four year deals. The first two
Speaker 8: years are guaranteed, the third year is a team option,
Speaker 8: and the fourth year is a team option. So the
Speaker 8: team decides in the third and fourth year of a
Speaker 8: rookie deal whether they want to keep that rookie for
Speaker 8: another year or not. So that's how they work.
Speaker 2: Is it possible to have a team option on Cody
Speaker 2: next year?
Speaker 8: Yes, yeah again, because those contracts are for four years.
Speaker 8: The first two are guaranteed, the third is is not guaranteed,
Speaker 8: the fourth is not guaranteed. So the team has the
Speaker 8: option to pick up if they want to keep the
Speaker 8: player on. They can pick up that option early in
Speaker 8: the fall for the for the year ahead, so they
Speaker 8: can they can do that if they choose to do it.
Speaker 8: This is the Jimmer for Debt deal Spence where for
Speaker 8: Debt had was taken by Sacramento in the first round
Speaker 8: in fact ten, just like Cody Williams was, and Sacramento
Speaker 8: decided after the second year they they didn't think Jimmer
Speaker 8: was good enough, they didn't want to pick up the
Speaker 8: team option, so they just let him go and the
Speaker 8: year at the summer, after his second year in the league,
Speaker 8: he became an unrestricted free agent.
Speaker 1: So in a wasteman because they also have team options
Speaker 1: on Keyante, Bryce Sensiba, and Isaiah Collier.
Speaker 8: That's correct.
Speaker 2: So five team options on these young players.
Speaker 8: That's all just because they're all under rookie rookie scale
Speaker 8: contracts for the first four years they're in the NBA.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of a bigger year for these
Speaker 1: five young players. And maybe we fully understand because the
Speaker 1: Jazz can make a decision on THO as early as
Speaker 1: next season.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well they could have, like for example, they picked
Speaker 8: up the option earlier on Kiante George. Okay, so you're
Speaker 8: allowed to do that, but just say, in a hypothetical situation,
Speaker 8: they Isaiah Collier just finished his first year, so he's
Speaker 8: got this next year coming up. Is guaranteed the Jazz
Speaker 8: can pick up the third year option. They have certain
Speaker 8: dates that they can. They can do that and get
Speaker 8: that under their belt. Sometimes you do that just to
Speaker 8: let the player know, hey, we're with you, we're gonna
Speaker 8: work with you, or whatever time, if you know, in
Speaker 8: the Jimmer for that case, you know, just say, hypothetically,
Speaker 8: Collier comes in, he's out of shape, he's he's gained weight,
Speaker 8: he's whatever. They don't like the way he shows up
Speaker 8: in training camp in the fall, they decide to hold
Speaker 8: off on picking up his third year option. They go
Speaker 8: into the middle of the season, he's not getting better,
Speaker 8: he's getting giving him some kind of attitude whatever. They
Speaker 8: can decide, hey, I'm not sure we got a guy
Speaker 8: we want to hang around with or keep, and so
Speaker 8: they can just wait it out, and then the end
Speaker 8: of next year they could say, hey, we're not gonna
Speaker 8: pick up the third year team option and we're just
Speaker 8: gonna let him go, and then they get out of
Speaker 8: the obligation all together, and now they let the kid
Speaker 8: move on, and then the team can move on. So
Speaker 8: that's why it's set up where those third and fourth
Speaker 8: years on the rookie scale contracts, the team controls whether
Speaker 8: they still want you as quote part of their team
Speaker 8: or part of their development program, and they want to
Speaker 8: keep you around doing that. And then at the end
Speaker 8: of the fourth year you become a restricted free agent.
Speaker 8: Now the team may give you an offer. You may
Speaker 8: accept it and extend that rookie deal and you can
Speaker 8: do that into the fifth, six, seventh year, or the
Speaker 8: team can say, like they did the Jazz did with
Speaker 8: Gordon Hayward, you know we're going to offer you just
Speaker 8: this amount. Gordon Hayward thought you should get more. The
Speaker 8: Jazz said, go out and get an offer from somebody
Speaker 8: and bring it back if you can. Gordon Hayward went
Speaker 8: out got an offer from the Charlotte Hornets for fifteen
Speaker 8: million a year. Comes back, says, I got an offer
Speaker 8: from Charlotte for fifteen million. You offered me ten, and
Speaker 8: the Jazz had seventy two hours to match it, and
Speaker 8: of course they didn't want to lose him. So in
Speaker 8: that regard, the Jazz say, we're gonna match that because
Speaker 8: you're a restricted free agent and they get to keep him.
Speaker 8: And they said, in this negotiation, in this moment in time, Gordon,
Speaker 8: you you won the debate because we tried to pay
Speaker 8: you ten and you went out and forced us to
Speaker 8: pay you fifteen by getting an offer from someone else.
Speaker 8: That's how it works. That's why we say in the
Speaker 8: current setup of the collective partying agreement, the first half
Speaker 8: of a player's career the minimum seven years, if the
Speaker 8: team wants you, they have control of you, no matter
Speaker 8: what you want to do as a player. The second
Speaker 8: half of your career, if you have a say, fifteen
Speaker 8: year career, like Gordon Hayward did, he's the perfect example
Speaker 8: of how it works, where the team controls the player's
Speaker 8: career the first half of it, and then the player
Speaker 8: controls what he wants to do in the second half
Speaker 8: of the of the career.
Speaker 2: Do you think that made Gordon mad?
Speaker 8: I don't know. I don't know if it made him mad,
Speaker 8: I would say this, Gordon and his dad are very
Speaker 8: smart guys. You know, Gordon is one of the smarter
Speaker 8: players that we've had through the Jazz over the years.
Speaker 8: Runs of practicality, and you know, he was smart enough.
Speaker 8: And and his agent, Mark Bartlestein, who's who's you know,
Speaker 8: a very well respected and very good guy and an
Speaker 8: honest guy. You know, he said, hey, we're gonna we're
Speaker 8: gonna go out and try and get an offer to
Speaker 8: get Gordon more money. That's his job, okay. And Gordon's
Speaker 8: sitting there going yeah, okay, yeah, I'd like to get
Speaker 8: more money if I can. And they went out and
Speaker 8: they got Charlotte. Now Charlotte had to make that commitment.
Speaker 8: So there was a period of seventy two hours where Charlotte,
Speaker 8: if the Jazz say yeah, that's too rich for our blood,
Speaker 8: we're out. Now Charlotte's got him. So Charlotte had to
Speaker 8: come to the table with that offer and make sure
Speaker 8: we want the guy in case, you know, Utah turns
Speaker 8: it down. We got him at that number, and of
Speaker 8: course the Jazz ended up accepting that number and he
Speaker 8: stayed with the Jazz for another three years. But that's
Speaker 8: that's how the CBA works, and that's how that's how
Speaker 8: all these players. They're under contract to the team for
Speaker 8: those first four years with those third and fourth year
Speaker 8: team options. That's always that's the way it's been for
Speaker 8: for for many many years now. So the team controls
Speaker 8: and they're looking at you in practice and they're looking
Speaker 8: to see, yeah, Spence checkets he is. Do we want
Speaker 8: to keep them around for third year? Do we want
Speaker 8: them a fourth year? And and the team controls that
Speaker 8: and uh, and then after that then then you get
Speaker 8: into the restrictive free agent stuff.
Speaker 1: All right, Before we catch a break, we'll wrap up
Speaker 1: the Jazz portion of our hit with Smittee today with
Speaker 1: just to follow up based off of all of these players,
Speaker 1: Isaiah Callier, Rice Sen, Sabah Caanty, George Cody Williams, Taylor
Speaker 1: Hendricks are technically entering what could be the final year
Speaker 1: of their deal with the Jazz could be technically Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you think any of them are in danger of
Speaker 1: not being brought back?
Speaker 8: That's a good question. I think, uh, I think those
Speaker 8: are probably guys that again, what's gonna be interesting play
Speaker 8: on it, Spence, now is that, you know, even though
Speaker 8: there's the obvious, you know, ange family connection on that,
Speaker 8: you know, was Danny Ainge who selected these guys parenthetically
Speaker 8: in the draft. He's the final decision maker during those drafts. Now,
Speaker 8: Austin Ainge is the one who's in charge. Maybe Austin
Speaker 8: Ainge says, hey, Dad, I love you, but the guy
Speaker 8: you chose last year he stinks, you know, and I
Speaker 8: don't like him yea. And so they have a disagreement
Speaker 8: about that. And so you know, there's always a scenario
Speaker 8: where they could they could, you know, sit there in
Speaker 8: the room and go, I just don't think the guy's
Speaker 8: good enough, and I think we made a mistake. And
Speaker 8: sometimes when you like the Sacramento Kings and the Gym
Speaker 8: of for Debt example, sometimes you have to just step
Speaker 8: up to the table and admit to yourself and to
Speaker 8: everybody around we made a mistake, we made the wrong call, okay,
Speaker 8: and we cut our losses and we moved. Sometimes teams
Speaker 8: don't like to do that because teams don't don't want
Speaker 8: to admit they made a mistake, and they don't want
Speaker 8: to admit that, oh, I had an error in judgment
Speaker 8: in that regard. And so a lot of times it's
Speaker 8: very rare that you see a team not pick up
Speaker 8: the third year option or the fourth year option on
Speaker 8: a player that they drafted, because the teams are trying
Speaker 8: to make sure that they squeeze all the water out
Speaker 8: of that stone and they make guy a full run
Speaker 8: to show us whether he can contribute and and continue
Speaker 8: playing in the NBA. And you know, sometimes sometimes teams
Speaker 8: will hold on to guys longer than they should, just
Speaker 8: because they're trying to make sure they give the player
Speaker 8: every opportunity to improve and to get better.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll catch a break coming up next, we'll
Speaker 1: move off the jazz and just talk more big picture
Speaker 1: stuff and of course, if anything down one we're on air,
Speaker 1: we'll bring it to you. Damian Lillard has been stretched
Speaker 1: and waved, and the Milwaukee Bucks have acquired Miles Turner.
Speaker 1: Some other interesting storylines, including Quinn Snyder being reunited with
Speaker 1: the player he had in Utah. We just didn't play
Speaker 1: Atlanta making some moves, Denver making some moves, Houston making
Speaker 1: some moves. We'll do some big picture NBA with Smitty
Speaker 1: coming up on the other side of a Tuesday edition
Speaker 1: of The Drive.
Speaker 2: Right here on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 7: Miss something from the Shan O'Connell Show, No worries, Just
Speaker 7: visit ESPN seven hundred sports dot com or search the
Speaker 7: Shaun O'Connell Show wherever you get great podcasts. You are
Speaker 7: listening to a Drive with Spence checkets on Kall North
Speaker 7: Salt Lake kxrk HD three, ESPN seven hundred and ninety
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Speaker 7: f for free. Today.
Speaker 2: We got some breaking.
Speaker 1: News, but don't get too excited. Duncan Robinson has agreed
Speaker 1: to a three year, forty eight million deal with the
Speaker 1: Detroit Pistons.
Speaker 8: What do you think, Svinny, Yeah, well I can see
Speaker 8: I can see Dennis Lindsay's fingers all over that. Duncan
Speaker 8: Robinson a good play with length and he's a very
Speaker 8: good open shooter. And the Pistons have money. So another
Speaker 8: guy that they're adding to the young group that can
Speaker 8: provide some spacing for Cave Cunningham off the pick and
Speaker 8: midpick and roll to get in the lane, and Robinson
Speaker 8: can be one of those guys spotting up on the
Speaker 8: wing or down in the corner, you know, having that
Speaker 8: three ball threat. So you know, a good a good
Speaker 8: spot for them, a good way for them to spend
Speaker 8: some of the money that they have under the cap.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's move over to what Milwaukee decided
Speaker 1: to do today with Damian Lillard, who played his college
Speaker 1: ball for Randy Rages up the way. It's what's called
Speaker 1: a stretch provision, and they waived him. And so from
Speaker 1: what I'm reading, and he'll be on the books for
Speaker 1: the next five years at about twenty f three million dollars. Optically,
Speaker 1: when you see that Damian Lillard has been waived by
Speaker 1: an NBA team, you're like, wait, what that is a wild,
Speaker 1: wild decision. Now, of course he will miss all the
Speaker 1: next year recovering from an injury. This way, he does
Speaker 1: get all of his money over the course of a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time, and he can pick where he
Speaker 1: wants to go next, whether it's his final act or
Speaker 1: the next act. But take us through the mentality of
Speaker 1: a front office. They also utilize the flexibility that they
Speaker 1: were able to get with this deal to acquire Miles
Speaker 1: Turner from Indiana and the Bucks and the Pacers. Not
Speaker 1: a lot of love lost there, so kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting day for them.
Speaker 8: Yeah. Well, what the the Bucks do is they replace
Speaker 8: brook Lopez with Miles Turner. So a little bit younger guy,
Speaker 8: a little bit springier, a guy, a little bit livelier,
Speaker 8: a body in the middle, a guy you can shoot
Speaker 8: fairly decently from the outside, you know, about the same
Speaker 8: as brook Lopez, but he's a little more active, and
Speaker 8: that allows them to play a guy basically is going
Speaker 8: to do the same stuff, you know, within reason that
Speaker 8: brook Lopez did h for Jiannis to support Jannis, you know,
Speaker 8: in that core in in Milwaukee, for Damian Lillard. This
Speaker 8: is a provision that's provided in the collective bargain agreement
Speaker 8: where teams make a mistake or if it's a mistake
Speaker 8: or something like this, where where they have a guy
Speaker 8: who's gonna be injured and is getting paid a lot
Speaker 8: of money and they just want to get out of
Speaker 8: it somehow. Your teams can now have what they call
Speaker 8: the stretch provision where they can waive a guy and
Speaker 8: then they take his total salary ode and they can
Speaker 8: stretch it over any period of time from one to
Speaker 8: five years. So Obviously, teams are gonna usually stretch it
Speaker 8: out to five, and that means they just chop it
Speaker 8: up in five equal segments, and that's what goes on
Speaker 8: their books in terms of salary cap purposes for luxury
Speaker 8: taxes and penalties and all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 8: they're gonna be paying Damian Lillard around twenty two, twenty
Speaker 8: three million or whatever it is a year for the
Speaker 8: next five years to sit at his beach house in
Speaker 8: Portland or do whatever he's gonna do. He's gonna rehab,
Speaker 8: He's gonna take this next year off. He's one of
Speaker 8: the hardest working guys in the NBA. And I know
Speaker 8: that personally. I've seen him. I've seen him do it
Speaker 8: for years, and we knew that coming into the draft
Speaker 8: when he got drafted. He's one of the guys you
Speaker 8: want with around your group because he is a true
Speaker 8: professional in every regard. So in that way, he's gonna
Speaker 8: work this next year. He's gonna work to get himself
Speaker 8: back as much as he can, and then he's gonna
Speaker 8: try and find a team, whether it's the end of
Speaker 8: next year, depending on how quickly his rehab goes, if
Speaker 8: he can get into the playoffs with a team that
Speaker 8: can use his services in a playoff run type situation.
Speaker 8: If it's not, then it would be next summer when
Speaker 8: he'd be full. You would think he would be fully
Speaker 8: healthy and then be able to look around and try
Speaker 8: and find a team that he thinks he can help,
Speaker 8: that he thinks he can add to their championship hopes.
Speaker 8: So he would be looking around at that point in time,
Speaker 8: I think for a select handful of teams that give
Speaker 8: him the best chance of maybe making a long run,
Speaker 8: you know, potentially to the NBA Finals and trying to
Speaker 8: win a championship near the end of his career. So
Speaker 8: that's what I kind of would think would be kind
Speaker 8: of the game plan that he would try and mark
Speaker 8: out for himself.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move over to the West for some
Speaker 1: teams that I think have made some interesting strides in
Speaker 1: the right direction. As we've already discussed the Utah Jazz
Speaker 1: and kind of what they're trying to do throughout the
Speaker 1: course of this offseason, I think we need to start
Speaker 1: with Houston, who of course acquires Kevin Durants were they
Speaker 1: extended Jabari, they gave him a five year deal. Van
Speaker 1: Vliet is locked in and then I'm not sure what's
Speaker 1: happening in Los Angeles, but Dorian Finney Smith is a
Speaker 1: good player, four years fifty three, mil Clint Cappella. You
Speaker 1: know they already have Steven Adams on the roster, I
Speaker 1: mean the Vegas odds, and I know you love this
Speaker 1: second best team in the West as of now, and
Speaker 1: there's plenty of time between now in the fall. But
Speaker 1: what do you make of Houston kind of going all
Speaker 1: in to expedite their process.
Speaker 8: Well, the the you know, what they're smart and is
Speaker 8: that they've got a guy who they know can can
Speaker 8: produce and be a lead guy in in in tough
Speaker 8: playoff situations. So that's Kevin Durant. So now they got
Speaker 8: these young guys, you know, and you know, look, Steven
Speaker 8: Adams is a vet, Clint Capella is a VET. Dorian
Speaker 8: Finney Smith has been around, he's a vet. So you've
Speaker 8: got these guys who have experienced playoffs experience to match
Speaker 8: up with the younger group of guys led by Shongoon
Speaker 8: who's twenty two years old, Jabari Smith who's twenty two
Speaker 8: years old, I'm and Thompson is twenty two. Then you
Speaker 8: put that you mix them in with Cam Whitmore, and
Speaker 8: then of course they resigned Fred van Vliet as well,
Speaker 8: And so you've got a good mix of veterans and
Speaker 8: young guys, and they're trying to get something done the
Speaker 8: next couple of years while they've got Kevin Durant in
Speaker 8: the fold and still playing at the highest of levels.
Speaker 8: So that's that's what they've figured out, and they figured
Speaker 8: out the money that they can get this done with.
Speaker 8: And so they've gone all in on trying to figure
Speaker 8: to see if they can challenge the Okcs and the
Speaker 8: Denvers and the Golden States of the Western Conference the
Speaker 8: next couple of years.
Speaker 1: I wonder real quick, going back to this Turner deal,
Speaker 1: if you're a Pacers fan, you were in Game seven
Speaker 1: of the finals ten days ago, like Halliburton's also going
Speaker 1: to miss time, What do you think is going on
Speaker 1: with the Indiana front office? Are are they kind of
Speaker 1: viewing next year the way Boston is without Tatum? It
Speaker 1: just it caught me off guard because I'm looking at
Speaker 1: what the Pacers just did, I'm looking at the East
Speaker 1: Wide Open.
Speaker 2: No halliburtn changes their equation.
Speaker 1: Ten days ago, they were in Game seven of the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals and Miles Turner as a buck.
Speaker 8: And you can look at it a lot of different ways. Spence.
Speaker 8: One is to say, hey, yeah, we got to Game seven,
Speaker 8: We had forty eight minutes to possibly win the NBA Championship.
Speaker 8: Didn't go our way. But we also have to be
Speaker 8: objective and look at how we got to game seven,
Speaker 8: and that was with a lot of good play during
Speaker 8: the playoffs, but also a lot of good fortune during
Speaker 8: the playoffs and different series where the ball literally bounced
Speaker 8: their way several times they got them, you know, a
Speaker 8: win in a playoff series that propelled them to go
Speaker 8: on to the next round of the playoffs. So they
Speaker 8: may be looking at it saying, yeah, we we had
Speaker 8: a good run. We had a lot of things go
Speaker 8: our way. We had the tough injury in the last game.
Speaker 8: Yeah it didn't quite work out that way. But we
Speaker 8: can't fool ourselves into thinking we're really that good in
Speaker 8: that regard. And and so we have to step back
Speaker 8: and make sure we're assessing our team fairly. And that
Speaker 8: also unfortunately involves in not having a Tyrese Haliburton next
Speaker 8: season on our playing roster. And so that's that's one
Speaker 8: thing we have to look at and assess in a
Speaker 8: way that makes sense for us in the short term,
Speaker 8: but also going forward in the long term what it
Speaker 8: means to us.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes there's this debate that rage is about. You know,
Speaker 1: who's the best local college player that has made his
Speaker 1: way towards uh, the NBA in professional basketball. And I
Speaker 1: don't know who the best is, but I know who
Speaker 1: the richest is, as Jaka Peertle has signed the richest
Speaker 1: contract in the history of any player that has played
Speaker 1: as college. But here one hundred and four million dollar
Speaker 1: extension for Yakaperla. I wonder back when he was here
Speaker 1: how you scouted him, what sort of player you thought
Speaker 1: he would be in your thoughts that he continues to
Speaker 1: play at a high level and Toronto obviously very values him.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he's uh, you know, I thought he'd be a
Speaker 8: solid pro and I think that's what he is. I
Speaker 8: don't think he's an All star level player, but I
Speaker 8: think he's a good starting center in the NBA. He
Speaker 8: he works hard, he's a good teammate, he's he's a
Speaker 8: good locker room guy. You know, while this looks like
Speaker 8: a lot of money, basically twenty five twenty six million
Speaker 8: dollars a year for the next four years. You know.
Speaker 8: That's unfortunately, that's the going rate, you know for regular guys. Now,
Speaker 8: if you look across the landscape of the NBA and
Speaker 8: with this new TV contract, in the new salary cap,
Speaker 8: that's that's in play now, that's just gonna keep creeping up.
Speaker 8: And so guys like Yaka Pertle, it can be in
Speaker 8: the right place at the right time and they can
Speaker 8: cash in on a deal like that. That doesn't doesn't
Speaker 8: you know, people tend to interpret someone getting money with
Speaker 8: them going to come out the next year and give
Speaker 8: us an increased value of production. That's usually not the case.
Speaker 8: What you're doing is you're just paying the guy because
Speaker 8: that's the going rate, to keep him on your team
Speaker 8: for what your hope is is going to be some
Speaker 8: kind of uh, improved play by the group as a whole.
Speaker 8: Yaka Pertle is a very nice player. He's Toronto obviously
Speaker 8: likes him.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 8: They drafted him, they traded him, they got him back.
Speaker 8: Now they're now they're committing to him. Uh, you know
Speaker 8: with this new four year deal, and that's and again
Speaker 8: that's part of what they're We did try to establish
Speaker 8: as a core group there in Toronto. Obviously, now without
Speaker 8: Messiu Shii leading them in that regard and with Bobby Webster,
Speaker 8: the longtime general manager at the moment making those those decisions.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do a quick I do want to
Speaker 1: talk about what the Atlanta Hawks have elected to do
Speaker 1: and our old buddy Quinn Snyders coaching that team. And
Speaker 1: I told you this before San Antonio Oklahoma City. You know,
Speaker 1: there are certain decision makers in the league where they
Speaker 1: do something and I'm just like, Okay, it makes sense
Speaker 1: because that's who they are, and that's the reputation they've earned.
Speaker 2: Four years.
Speaker 1: Forty one million dollars for Luke Cornette feels like a
Speaker 1: lot of money, though, yeah, for this San Antonio Spurs,
Speaker 1: but they get a legitimate backup to Wembanyama insurance if
Speaker 1: wemban Yama has more health issues. And San Antonio adds
Speaker 1: Dylan Harper via the draft, and they obviously have the
Speaker 1: back to back Rookie of the Year winners with Weman
Speaker 1: Yama and Stefan Castle. But what do you make of
Speaker 1: San Antonio paining Luke Cornette forty one million dollars over
Speaker 1: four years?
Speaker 8: I think that's a lot of money for what Luca
Speaker 8: Cornett does. He's an active player, he's long, he's can
Speaker 8: move somewhat not great, but he uh he plays hard
Speaker 8: when he's out there. He can uh, he can hit
Speaker 8: an occasional shot, but he's more of a serviceable big man.
Speaker 8: Ten million dollars seems like it's a lot of money
Speaker 8: for someone like him. You can get guys like him
Speaker 8: in my opinion, Uh, you know, at a lesser number,
Speaker 8: but they they have some money to spend. They like him.
Speaker 8: It's not it's good. It's not gonna be a big number.
Speaker 8: Two years from now when he's in the third year
Speaker 8: of the deal, he's still making ten million, so it
Speaker 8: may look even better than so. But he's he's a
Speaker 8: player that they they wanted to go out and add
Speaker 8: to their core group. It's again, it feels like a
Speaker 8: lot of money for someone like him and what he
Speaker 8: does to me. Uh, But in the great scheme of things,
Speaker 8: it's not a lot of money to secure a guy
Speaker 8: that you think adds to your group. Culturally. He's a
Speaker 8: good guy in the locker room, he's a good guy
Speaker 8: you know, on the practice floor, and he's someone who's
Speaker 8: going to add to how you want to try and
Speaker 8: do things in San Antonio.
Speaker 1: Another local story, but not involving the Utah Jazz. And
Speaker 1: anybody who knows anything knows that the Bountiful Braves are
Speaker 1: known for developing good looking guys that can really shoot it.
Speaker 8: There you go.
Speaker 1: And so Sammy Merrill another contract, four years, thirty eight
Speaker 1: million dollars for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Speaker 8: So they call that, I think in circles they call
Speaker 8: that the Bountiful Spence check its number, well said, So
Speaker 8: that's that's right around that area. But you know, happy
Speaker 8: for Sam. Look, he's bounced around on a number of teams.
Speaker 8: He was the last guy taking in his draft a year.
Speaker 8: He's had to go through the G league route a
Speaker 8: few times, he's been out of jobs a few times.
Speaker 8: He's been one of those guys who has one foot in,
Speaker 8: one foot out. He's stuck with it again. Another guy
Speaker 8: that to me might have been I can't say better
Speaker 8: served because obviously he just got this deal now with
Speaker 8: a very competitive NBA team that likes him and that
Speaker 8: uses him in their rotation. So he's gonna be making
Speaker 8: nine million a year the next four years. You know,
Speaker 8: he could have a bigger role on a EuroLeague team
Speaker 8: and be very competitive playing in Europe, but he'd probably
Speaker 8: only be making two or three million. And so, you know,
Speaker 8: for him, he's stuck with it. He believed in himself,
Speaker 8: he worked at it. He's a great you know, he's
Speaker 8: an A plus guy as we all know, and you
Speaker 8: know he's a little bit of a one trick pony
Speaker 8: at the NBA level, but he's managed to figure out
Speaker 8: how to do that at a level that allows him
Speaker 8: to contribute to a very good team and to fit
Speaker 8: in with the group of guys that they have and
Speaker 8: spends all the time we talk about the fact that
Speaker 8: it's not just this isn't a one on one tournament
Speaker 8: in the NBA. You got to be part of a
Speaker 8: group of a team that's trying to be on the
Speaker 8: same page to try and affect winning and trying to
Speaker 8: move your team forward. And Cleveland obviously values him as
Speaker 8: one part of their equation for playing winning basketball in
Speaker 8: the role that he provides them, and so it's a
Speaker 8: it's a great, a great moment for Sam. It couldn't
Speaker 8: be happier for him and his family because he's really
Speaker 8: earned it and really put himself in this position Denver.
Speaker 1: We should talk about Denver because I feel like, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, they had they have Jokich, so they're
Speaker 1: just going to be relevant because they have who I
Speaker 1: think is the best player in the world right now.
Speaker 1: But they have been criticized over the past couple of
Speaker 1: years for letting contributors walk instead of going into luxury
Speaker 1: tax or second Apron, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: And they made three.
Speaker 1: Pretty interesting moves. First, they trade Michael Porter Junior in
Speaker 1: an unprotected first round pick in twenty thirty two. Now
Speaker 1: it's twenty twenty five, so nobody knows. In twenty thirty two,
Speaker 1: yok which should be thirty seven, so we'll see what Brooklyn's.
Speaker 2: Able to grab.
Speaker 1: Their They bring in Cam Johnson, who was a son
Speaker 1: for a minute, and I think there's a lot to
Speaker 1: like about Cam Johnson. And then they bring back Bruce Brown,
Speaker 1: who was a key member of their championship team a
Speaker 1: few years ago. And look, I'm not a huge Tim
Speaker 1: Hardaway junior guy, but if he's your ninth or tenth guy,
Speaker 1: I think you're doing all right.
Speaker 2: What do you make of the three moves Denvers made, Yeah.
Speaker 8: I think they they've done. They brought back a guy
Speaker 8: who they know and they can fit in seamlessly with
Speaker 8: how they play. And that's Bruce Brown. They made the
Speaker 8: switch with Michael Porter and brought in Cam Johnson, you know,
Speaker 8: not quite as big as Porter, but maybe maybe does
Speaker 8: the same kind of stuff, you know, within reason for
Speaker 8: for how they their group operates. Of course in that
Speaker 8: you know, by Addie those guys in the mix, you know,
Speaker 8: to to go with the guys they already have in
Speaker 8: Gordon and and Jokic and Murray, those guys you know,
Speaker 8: can fit in with what they do and how they're
Speaker 8: trying to do it. And of course, uh, they've got
Speaker 8: the emerging player Christian Brown, who I think you know,
Speaker 8: it gives them something. And then also they you know,
Speaker 8: they brought in uh both Jonas Valentunas uh and they
Speaker 8: got him in the trade now uh to bring him
Speaker 8: in as a backup. He's a very good be a
Speaker 8: very good backup for jo Kich and may be able
Speaker 8: to give him some extra minutes from game to game,
Speaker 8: which would be interesting to them. And then uh, and
Speaker 8: and then I believe they're bringing out they bringing it
Speaker 8: back Russell Westbrook.
Speaker 1: That's not what is officials. They've also traded Dario Sarage
Speaker 1: for Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, they've traded Sharge for for Valentnis Uh and
Speaker 8: they're getting him, you know, to be Jokich's backup, which
Speaker 8: is smart because he can take extra minutes he can
Speaker 8: meaning he can play, you know, maybe more backup minutes
Speaker 8: than the Denver backups have been doing for Jokic, so
Speaker 8: can give him more time off the court during games,
Speaker 8: which you will extend him during the course of the season.
Speaker 8: So when he gets to April and May and hopefully
Speaker 8: June for them, you know, he's played fewer minutes that year,
Speaker 8: and maybe he'll have more gas in the tank come playoff.
Speaker 2: Time Final one.
Speaker 1: Smidtey, Yeah, I think this is fascinating because the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Hawks have a coach named Quinn Snyder, and once upon
Speaker 1: a time, Quinn Snyder had a player named nkil Alexander
Speaker 1: Walker who could not get off the bench. Quinn seemed
Speaker 1: to prefer Royce O'Neil and some other players. Ni kil
Speaker 1: Alexander Walker goes to Minnesota, has a really good run
Speaker 1: playoffs Game two, three, and four. You had like fifty
Speaker 1: two points on nineteen and thirty two shooting. Once Minnesota
Speaker 1: brought back NAS Reed and Julius Randall. It looked like
Speaker 1: Nikio was out of their price range, and the Kiel
Speaker 1: Alexander Walker lands in Atlanta to play for Quinn again.
Speaker 1: They make the deal last week for Kristaps for Zeus,
Speaker 1: Terrence Man goes to Brooklyn, George Niang former buddy around here,
Speaker 1: goes to Boston, and then they also bring in Luke
Speaker 1: Canard from the Minnesota or achieved me from the Memphis Grizzlies.
Speaker 1: So again, as we've talked about, the East, certainly feels
Speaker 1: like it is pretty wide open. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you think Atlanta has put themselves in the mix, but
Speaker 1: some interesting movement from the Atlanta Hawks.
Speaker 8: No, they've they've They've added some players that will help them,
Speaker 8: some guys who will be very good players, maybe starting,
Speaker 8: but certainly rotational type guys. And u ni Kiel, He'll
Speaker 8: he'll come in. He'll give him good rotation minutes. He's
Speaker 8: a good role player who can play multiple positions. Of course,
Speaker 8: Luke Canard is one of the better shooters in the league.
Speaker 8: Then he has had that experience to be able to
Speaker 8: extend defenses. They have the new draft pick that you
Speaker 8: know they got last week, Ason Newell out of Georgia,
Speaker 8: who I think has a chance to be a pretty
Speaker 8: good player if Porzingis is healthy. He's got one year left,
Speaker 8: so he's kind of like on a trial basis with
Speaker 8: them to see what he can do during the course
Speaker 8: of the year and if he can stay healthy. And
Speaker 8: of course they had the number one pick two years ago, Zacharysache,
Speaker 8: who's still a guy who's learning, who's developing. So they
Speaker 8: have a nice mix of guys there all around Trey Young,
Speaker 8: who controls all the action from the point guard position,
Speaker 8: so you know, a nice mix of guys there. Of course,
Speaker 8: again Atlanta dealing with the front office change of their own,
Speaker 8: so they have some different decision makers there now and
Speaker 8: we'll see how that plays out for Quinn Snyder and
Speaker 8: his group.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you one more question only because I
Speaker 1: just received my fifth text message of the day about
Speaker 1: this and I know the answer to it. So don't
Speaker 1: get mad at me, don't put me in my corner.
Speaker 1: There's nothing that makes sense about the Jazz and Dame Lillard, right,
Speaker 1: there's nothing that makes sense about Dame Lillard signed with
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz for either the Jazz or Dame.
Speaker 8: That would be correct in my opinion. I mean, there's
Speaker 8: no I mean, Damian Lillard is gonna he's gonna be
Speaker 8: taken next year to to rehab, to get his leg right,
Speaker 8: get all that stuff straightened out. He'll do that because
Speaker 8: he's that kind of a worker. And then my opinion,
Speaker 8: I would assume that he would then be in a
Speaker 8: position to be able to look around the league and
Speaker 8: target three, four, five teams that he thinks he could
Speaker 8: add to, either as the starter, depending on what a
Speaker 8: particular team situation is, or you know, as a valuable rotation,
Speaker 8: backup guy to try and get somebody over the hump
Speaker 8: in a playoff situation. You know, is that you know,
Speaker 8: might be too late for somebody like the Lakers. But
Speaker 8: just as a hypothetical example, maybe a year from now,
Speaker 8: if he's if he rehabs well enough and he's ready
Speaker 8: to go next March or April, maybe maybe he looks
Speaker 8: at the Lakers and go he says, hey, I can
Speaker 8: go with Lebron James and Luka Doncic and those guys
Speaker 8: and I can help them in the spring, you know,
Speaker 8: make something happen, or maybe you know, he go somewhere
Speaker 8: else for one of these other teams and tries to
Speaker 8: give them some help again either as their starter or
Speaker 8: off the bench, to try and help them make an
Speaker 8: extended playoff run towards a potential championship.
Speaker 1: Well, Smithy, I think today was the day you finally
Speaker 1: became a pro at radio. You gave me five minutes
Speaker 1: on Johnny Jusang being waived and sphe m kay Luke's
Speaker 1: contract picking up that.
Speaker 2: That's called filibustering. And if you can't do that, you
Speaker 2: can't do this job.
Speaker 8: So bravos, sir, see that, and you can throw any
Speaker 8: name you want to spend that meeting. If I don't
Speaker 8: know it, yeah, I certainly will have two minutes that
Speaker 8: I just make up on the fly.
Speaker 2: That's part of that's part of the job.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 1: Hey, great to see you. We'll get you back soon. Okay,
Speaker 1: thanks many, Richard Smith. Day two of NBA Free Agencies.
Speaker 1: Get over to the five o'clock hour of the program
Speaker 1: coming up in just a little bit, bringing Kyle Bondaguerro
Speaker 1: from ESPN the latest on the Jake retz lav situation
Speaker 1: at by U University of Utah. Locks in a nice
Speaker 1: commit today for the twenty twenty sixth class. We'll be
Speaker 1: in Dallas or I guess Frisco technically next week for
Speaker 1: Big twelve media days. But let's do a little more jazz.
Speaker 1: It's been a while, but our good friend from the
Speaker 1: Destrat News, Sarah Todd, stops by on a Tuesday afternoon. Sarah,
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday.
Speaker 9: How are you happy Tuesday? Since Tuesday? What a beautiful
Speaker 9: day it is.
Speaker 1: It is a beautiful day, and we've got a lot
Speaker 1: to do with you because it's been a minute since
Speaker 1: we've been able to connect.
Speaker 2: So we'll start with the little jazz draft stuff.
Speaker 1: And I just wonder what your understanding is of this
Speaker 1: narrative surrounding Ace at Ace Bailey, who the Jazz landed
Speaker 1: on a number five and the whole Hey, he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be here, his camp doesn't want him to
Speaker 1: be in Salt Lake City, and then there's rumors that
Speaker 1: he won't report all of the things, and I can't
Speaker 1: cooperate any of them. But your thoughts on the jazz
Speaker 1: drafting Ace and your understanding of the narrative surrounding that selection.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean I think that what I expected to
Speaker 9: happen is what happened, right like once once Ace Bailey
Speaker 9: was here. Once you get in the building, you know,
Speaker 9: once the zeros behind the dollar sign are made clear
Speaker 9: on the rookie contract, and everything else kind of falls
Speaker 9: into place. And that's how I kind of expected this
Speaker 9: to play out. I didn't expect him to not report.
Speaker 9: It's my understanding that the top five team that he
Speaker 9: was rumored to have his team to have not said
Speaker 9: that he would report to was not the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 9: But you know, that's neither here nor there at this point, right.
Speaker 9: But I think that the biggest thing that I can
Speaker 9: say is that the narrative that kind of started to
Speaker 9: formulate about maybe Ace being entitled and not really you know,
Speaker 9: knowing how this process works and being like an arrogant kid,
Speaker 9: that it was expecting too much. That's the part that
Speaker 9: I didn't appreciate, because you know, we're talking about an
Speaker 9: eighteen year old kid. We're talking about a literal teenager
Speaker 9: who had people in his corner handling his business, and
Speaker 9: that they were the ones that were representing him and
Speaker 9: speaking on behalf for him during the pre draft process.
Speaker 9: And I think that that was all done in a
Speaker 9: very misguided fashion. And now we move on from it.
Speaker 1: As far as what you think he can be as
Speaker 1: a player for the Jazz as he grows. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be tough because there are very few eighteen
Speaker 1: year olds in our name Lebron James that step in.
Speaker 2: And look like they're ready.
Speaker 1: But and we'll get to some of the decisions that
Speaker 1: have already been made, it does indicate that there should
Speaker 1: be plenty of minutes for him.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of fans are excited about that.
Speaker 1: So I'll ask a two parter, what do you think
Speaker 1: it looks like immediately and what should Jazz fans hope
Speaker 1: it looks like eventually?
Speaker 9: Immediately? Probably not gonna look great, right, you said it.
Speaker 9: There's not a lot of guys that come into this
Speaker 9: league and look perfect and ready and you know, polished
Speaker 9: right away. But I think that prior to Draft night,
Speaker 9: on the Utah Jazz roster, there was probably not a
Speaker 9: single player on the roster, but Jazz fans could have
Speaker 9: gone out and got his jersey and been like, yes,
Speaker 9: this is going to be a guy that's going to
Speaker 9: be a part of the future, no questions asked. Right,
Speaker 9: Even if we're talking about guys like Lowry, Markinen and
Speaker 9: Walker Kessler, those are not guarantees, like the Jazz are
Speaker 9: going to hear offers that come in for them and
Speaker 9: if one makes sense, they'll make it. And so there
Speaker 9: and like the young guys on this roster currently, like, yeah,
Speaker 9: there's been some flashes of potential, but there's nothing that
Speaker 9: we've seen at this point that says like absolutely no
Speaker 9: questions asked. Isaiah Collier is a building block for the future, right,
Speaker 9: Like there's just not a player on the team, And
Speaker 9: so then Draft night comes in. Ace Dailey is someone
Speaker 9: that has potential to be a clear building block, So like,
Speaker 9: what could we see in the future. This kid could
Speaker 9: be really good. He has all star potential, and we
Speaker 9: don't don't know if he's going to reach that feeling.
Speaker 9: We don't know what's going to happen, and that's part
Speaker 9: of like the risk of all of this and building teams.
Speaker 9: But if you're looking towards like what the Jazz are
Speaker 9: trying to do, he could be one of the certain
Speaker 9: building blocks.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way, And I also feel like
Speaker 1: this fan base has been a little and look it,
Speaker 1: we should be very clear, Sarah, as you and I
Speaker 1: visit throughout the course of the off season then into
Speaker 1: next season, this appears that it will be another very
Speaker 1: long year from a standpoint of wins and losses, But
Speaker 1: at least there's like a plan starting to formulate a
Speaker 1: little bit. And I do feel like there's genuine excitement
Speaker 1: in the community for jazz fans about what Ace could
Speaker 1: eventually be.
Speaker 2: Are you getting kind of the same vibe?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Absolutely, I mean I think that you know me and
Speaker 9: you both said when you know Austin Ainge was hired
Speaker 9: and the question was asked why Sean O'Connell, like, you know,
Speaker 9: what's your philosophy on manipulating player minutes and availability in
Speaker 9: order to tank? And he said, you won't see that
Speaker 9: this year. The sub tweet on that was because we
Speaker 9: won't have the players on the roster that we need
Speaker 9: to manipulate their minutes, right, And that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 9: You don't need to sit Jordan Clarkson out anymore because
Speaker 9: they've bought out his contract. You don't need to worry
Speaker 9: about sitting a healthy Colin Sexton because they've traded him.
Speaker 9: Now that you bring in use of Nurkic and a
Speaker 9: lot of fans see that and they think, why would
Speaker 9: you give up like a twenty six year old guy
Speaker 9: who's really efficient shooter for someone who's basically like a
Speaker 9: washed backup center. Well, because the Jazz don't want to win,
Speaker 9: that's why. And so they got what they wanted out
Speaker 9: of that deal. They got the exact amount of expiring
Speaker 9: money that Colin Sexton would have been on, and they
Speaker 9: got someone that they don't have to worry about sitting
Speaker 9: on the bench when he's healthy. And so I think
Speaker 9: that you're yes, Jazz fans are absolutely in for another
Speaker 9: long season. It's not going to be very good, but
Speaker 9: at least you are going to see exactly what we
Speaker 9: have out of all of the young guys there is.
Speaker 9: There will be no lack of opportunity for them to
Speaker 9: get on the floor and they're going to be competing
Speaker 9: against each other and competing for their next contracts.
Speaker 1: So that brings us to and it's Walt. It's not Walter,
Speaker 1: it's wal Clayton Junior. That's what he wants to be called.
Speaker 1: And if that's what he wants, we'll give it to him.
Speaker 1: So I'll call him Walt. And I'm a little conflicted
Speaker 1: about this. I think where I've landed, and I thought
Speaker 1: Brad Stevens comment was interesting when he asked. He was
Speaker 1: asked about Austin trading up for wal Clayton Junior, and
Speaker 1: he said, I could have told you two years ago
Speaker 1: Austin was going to go trade up for him. So
Speaker 1: this is a player Austin has liked for a long time,
Speaker 1: and so where I've landed on it is Look, only
Speaker 1: time will tell.
Speaker 2: We'll see how it manifests. But if that's your guy,
Speaker 2: go get them.
Speaker 1: Okay, if that's the guy you've identified, you've done your calculation,
Speaker 1: go get them. But you trade twenty one for eighteen,
Speaker 1: and then you also trade three second round picks, which
Speaker 1: is also not nothing to only move up three spots.
Speaker 1: Like I said, my net net is if Walts the guy,
Speaker 1: go get him.
Speaker 2: But what's your take on the transit.
Speaker 9: I think I'm going to fall in the same place
Speaker 9: as you. Like if that's the guy that you wanted,
Speaker 9: If that's the guy that you singled out and you
Speaker 9: really wanted to get him, and you heard that Miami
Speaker 9: was gonna pick him before you wanted to, and all
Speaker 9: you had to do was to give up some seconds
Speaker 9: to move up. Sure, go get the guy that you
Speaker 9: really really want. Of course, how that plays out in
Speaker 9: the future is going to determine whether or not it
Speaker 9: was a good a good move to make. And also
Speaker 9: with you, like three seconds isn't nothing. But if it's
Speaker 9: three second round picks for a guy that you really
Speaker 9: believe in that then turns into somebody that could be
Speaker 9: like a full rotation player for a good number of years,
Speaker 9: then like it's hard to find those players in the
Speaker 9: second round, right, Like those are those are such like
Speaker 9: luck of the draw picks in the second round that
Speaker 9: you don't always know whether it's going to be you know,
Speaker 9: Nikola Jokic or some guy that you never heard of
Speaker 9: even after Draft night because he never even played a
Speaker 9: day in the NBA, right, And so it's kind of
Speaker 9: a this or that and time will tell. But I'm
Speaker 9: fine with it, you know, Like, like I like that
Speaker 9: the Jazz took Walter Clayton junior and even in the
Speaker 9: second round when they picked John Toanji, like a couple
Speaker 9: of guys that just aren't eighteen, Right, You've got a
Speaker 9: bunch of guys who came in off one and done
Speaker 9: years in college, and I just like that they have
Speaker 9: some guys that are going to come in and like
Speaker 9: actually can play some basketball and maybe don't need like
Speaker 9: the maturation time that the others need. That doesn't mean
Speaker 9: that they're going to be great, but I just think
Speaker 9: that it's good that it's on the roster that not
Speaker 9: everybody is an actual teenager.
Speaker 1: Well said, let's let's go back to the Sexton deal.
Speaker 1: You outlined it well, and we could just bottom line
Speaker 1: it with your answer, but I'll follow up asking if
Speaker 1: you are surprised that there wasn't better value out there
Speaker 1: for Colin who's coming off a good year and he's
Speaker 1: one of the players that has shown up shown he's
Speaker 1: a pro shot over forty percent from three years, about
Speaker 1: nineteen points a night, And to your earlier point, that
Speaker 1: may have been the only motivation they wanted. A matching
Speaker 1: salary and a player that you don't need to play
Speaker 1: because Nurkich is no longer, you know, with anything other
Speaker 1: than a vet, they can give you ten or twelve
Speaker 1: minutes to night. But were you surprised there wasn't more
Speaker 1: value in return with that transaction for the Jazz.
Speaker 9: A little bit? Right? I think that, especially if you're
Speaker 9: thinking about John Collins, the way that he has kind
Speaker 9: of improved his offensive game since coming to Utah, and
Speaker 9: then Colin Sexton, he showed that he can be a
Speaker 9: little bit more of a distributor. Right Like, it looked
Speaker 9: like these were positive value guys. But I think there's
Speaker 9: a couple of things that came to mind kind of
Speaker 9: right after the initial like sticker shock. And that's obviously
Speaker 9: not to say John Collins is gone, but I assume
Speaker 9: that he will be at some point. Number One, these
Speaker 9: are guys that looked really good on the Jazz, and
Speaker 9: that is a bar that is very low in the
Speaker 9: NBA as of today. I mean, when you're playing on
Speaker 9: the absolute worst defensive team in the league and you're
Speaker 9: playing on a team that has the least amount of
Speaker 9: wins and the minutes that you play look good, that's relative.
Speaker 9: And number two, the value of these players might not
Speaker 9: necessarily been the value of them in particular, but maybe
Speaker 9: just the value of the Jazz is negotiating power in
Speaker 9: these situations. The rest of the NBA knows exactly what
Speaker 9: the Jazz are doing. They know that they need to
Speaker 9: get off these veteran expiring deals. They know that they
Speaker 9: want a runway for the young players to play, and
Speaker 9: so they the Jazz don't really have leverage here, it's like, well,
Speaker 9: you want us to take on a contract that you
Speaker 9: don't want, and you want a player that's also on
Speaker 9: expiring to come back, Like what's in it for us?
Speaker 9: Especially for like, let's look at Charlotte, Like, it's not
Speaker 9: like they need a bunch of guards. And so it
Speaker 9: doesn't really really shock me once I start to think
Speaker 9: about it that the rest of the league is like, hey, UTAHD,
Speaker 9: what can you even show us that proves that the
Speaker 9: Ers are good players? That they played kind of good
Speaker 9: on the worst team in the league. That doesn't really
Speaker 9: say much.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, well said, all right, now this moves us
Speaker 1: over to Jordan Clark's in a couple of different layers
Speaker 1: to this question. I have been a little bit surprised
Speaker 1: at how sad a lot of people are to see
Speaker 1: JC go. You know, last couple of years. The on
Speaker 1: court stuff just wasn't great. The advanced numbers weren't great,
Speaker 1: the usage, the true shooting percentage. He just none of
Speaker 1: us are as young as we used to be. And
Speaker 1: you know, he's not the guy that won six Man
Speaker 1: of the Year. You know, in retrospect, the trade that
Speaker 1: that xanak and and and that group made for him
Speaker 1: was really good, sending Dante and a couple of second
Speaker 1: rounders to Cleveland for him. But I think you'll have
Speaker 1: better perspective on this than I do. As somebody who's
Speaker 1: on the beat, and I always say this, you should
Speaker 1: listen to the beat writers.
Speaker 2: They know more than any of us.
Speaker 1: It does feel like throughout this four year pivot, clunky
Speaker 1: rebuild that at best has been mediocre and at worst
Speaker 1: has been embarrassing, He's kind of been a north star,
Speaker 1: like a bright spot for the organization, bright spot for
Speaker 1: the locker room. So as as Clarkson walks out the
Speaker 1: door and reportedly he is going to sign with the Knicks,
Speaker 1: can you put some perspective why a lot of people
Speaker 1: feel like this is kind of a sad day.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I think even the on court stuff, you know, is
Speaker 9: have context, right, Like, you know, Jordan getting the ball
Speaker 9: from a bunch of rookies or second year guys with
Speaker 9: five seconds on a shot clock is not really the
Speaker 9: best way to operate. And you know, or another situation
Speaker 9: if you imagine, you know, Jordan's in an ISO situation
Speaker 9: on the right wing and he looks over and the
Speaker 9: guy that's open from three is Isaiah Collier who can't
Speaker 9: shoot threes, and I probably wouldn't want to pass the
Speaker 9: ball either, and so I think that it was just
Speaker 9: a really weird situation, and so that led to some
Speaker 9: bad numbers. Part of it is obviously what you said right,
Speaker 9: father Time is undefeated. He's not the man that he
Speaker 9: used to be. All of that's true too, but I
Speaker 9: think that he was also like the last three and
Speaker 9: a half years really took a toll on him. I mean,
Speaker 9: even that last year with the Donovan and Rudy team,
Speaker 9: that took toll on those players, and he was the
Speaker 9: last player on this team that had ties to that team,
Speaker 9: and so I don't think that he ever really got
Speaker 9: to recover and move on from that because he was
Speaker 9: still here. And so, yeah, it didn't look great. And
Speaker 9: I'm honestly really happy that he gets a chance to
Speaker 9: go play for a team that's actually gonna play for
Speaker 9: some meaningful basketball, like the game's mattering. Makes me happy
Speaker 9: for Jordan, and he was kind of a bright spot,
Speaker 9: and I think that's probably one of the reasons that
Speaker 9: the Jazz held on to him a little bit, is
Speaker 9: because he was a familiar face. He was a sellable name.
Speaker 9: He's somebody that could get butts and seats.
Speaker 6: He was also I.
Speaker 9: Mean, he has an incredible wealth of knowledge about the NBA.
Speaker 9: Like he might not have ever been the guy on
Speaker 9: a team, but he has been on good teams and
Speaker 9: he's been around a lot of really great players, and
Speaker 9: so he was a good guy who was fun to
Speaker 9: be around for these young guys, and he could also
Speaker 9: take them under their wing. And it wasn't weird when
Speaker 9: he was advice because it felt like it came from
Speaker 9: a good place. And so he was great for this
Speaker 9: team and he was great for the fans. It is
Speaker 9: absolutely no surprise to me that someone was his personality
Speaker 9: and the amount of slagger that he has endeared himself
Speaker 9: so much to the fans so quickly, and it's going
Speaker 9: to really leave a hole for the Jazz. I mean,
Speaker 9: there's no one like Jordan Clarkson's.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to ask you a follow up, just
Speaker 1: like I did with Colin, and the answer could be
Speaker 1: exactly the same, and it's fine, but I am curious
Speaker 1: as to whether or not you're a bit surprised that
Speaker 1: the Jazz only option with Jordan was essentially they cut him.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's a buyout situation where it
Speaker 1: saves the team some money. But are you surprised they
Speaker 1: couldn't get anything on the open market for Jordan Clarkson.
Speaker 9: No, I'm not super surprised. I know that they tried
Speaker 9: to move him, you know, at least last year, and
Speaker 9: weren't able to get some I think that the thing is,
Speaker 9: it's like, do you want to take on another contract
Speaker 9: and possibly give up maybe a second or any kind
Speaker 9: of pick to attach to him when what you really
Speaker 9: want is money off the books and to keep the
Speaker 9: rest of your assets. I mean, I think that it
Speaker 9: makes a little bit more sense when you're looking at
Speaker 9: Colin because there was more money involved there and they
Speaker 9: were able to get a backup center in the process.
Speaker 9: But for Jordan, I think that it made a lot
Speaker 9: of sense to just like cut ties and just give
Speaker 9: him a chance to go sign with someone else who
Speaker 9: wants him and for those teams who you know, I
Speaker 9: think the Knicks are going to be putting him on
Speaker 9: a vat minimum this year, which is basically the amount
Speaker 9: of money that he gave up in the buyout, and
Speaker 9: so he doesn't lose money this year. The Jazz save
Speaker 9: a little bit of money and get his contract off
Speaker 9: the books. I think that this is kind of a
Speaker 9: win win in a bit of a lose lose situation,
Speaker 9: if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: It does so.
Speaker 1: As I talk about all the time when it comes
Speaker 1: to teams that are in the spot the Jazz are in,
Speaker 1: there is a salary floor that you have to hit.
Speaker 1: Everyone talks about the second apron, the salary cap, the
Speaker 1: luxury tax.
Speaker 2: Well, you also have.
Speaker 1: To spend a minimum amount of money on your roster,
Speaker 1: and this year's salary floor is just about one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty million. If my numbers in front of me
Speaker 1: are correct. The Jazz are at one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: point six million right now, which leads us to John Collins. Now,
Speaker 1: any transaction they'll bring money back. My point is John
Speaker 1: just might be a guy that you're fine paying for
Speaker 1: one more year. You know, it doesn't necessarily distract or
Speaker 1: dissuade you from what you're trying to accomplish this season.
Speaker 1: But more noise around John Collins potentially being moved off
Speaker 1: of by the Utah Jazz. Any insight on what's next
Speaker 1: for the Jazz and John.
Speaker 9: I know that the Jazz have been working to move
Speaker 9: off of them to find a trade partner. So far,
Speaker 9: it's been hard for them to find something that like
Speaker 9: nets them a positive result. Looking at the same thing
Speaker 9: as collinsext and right, like, no one was going to
Speaker 9: give the Jazz good things to take on a contract
Speaker 9: that they didn't want anymore, and so they had to
Speaker 9: add a second and so then that's kind of a
Speaker 9: negative net, right, you got to give up something you
Speaker 9: get it, And that's not really what the Jazz wanted
Speaker 9: to do with John, considering how much he kind of
Speaker 9: revamped his offensive games. That being said, the league still
Speaker 9: knows that he's not really a great defensive player, and
Speaker 9: he didn't really show that he was much better with
Speaker 9: the Jazz. I mean, it's hard to show that you're
Speaker 9: a great defensive player when you're on a team that
Speaker 9: is the worst defensive team. So I think that it's
Speaker 9: been difficult. That being said, if he ends up being
Speaker 9: a player they keep and tell him he doesn't have
Speaker 9: to report if they want to buy him out, that's
Speaker 9: a possibility to U they could also keep him around,
Speaker 9: like they are not the Jazz are not opposed to
Speaker 9: just letting John Collins deal expiring, because once you've got,
Speaker 9: you know, John Collins, Colin Sexton, or use of Nurkic.
Speaker 9: Now Jordan Clark sends the money off the books for
Speaker 9: all those you know contracts at the at the end
Speaker 9: of this upcoming season. That gives them a lot of
Speaker 9: wiggle room and a lot of cap space. And so
Speaker 9: I just I think that you're right if he ends
Speaker 9: up being here, I think that they can maneuver around that.
Speaker 9: But they've still got options to go and maybe they'll
Speaker 9: be able to pull something together and find a trade
Speaker 9: partner before the end of the offseason.
Speaker 1: I know we've discussed this, but it's been a minute,
Speaker 1: So I'm just going to bring up the two names
Speaker 1: that you know, feel like they're very good players, but
Speaker 1: do they fit the timeline? And it's weird to say
Speaker 1: that about Walker Kessler, but you know, I'll ask you
Speaker 1: whether or not you have any recent intel on the
Speaker 1: Jazz potentially fielding phone calls and either Walker or Lowry.
Speaker 1: I mean, I talk about this now every day now
Speaker 1: that Austin is in charge. It's not marry to any
Speaker 1: of these guys. Didn't draft him, didn't trade for him.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I have nothing but good things to
Speaker 1: say about both these players. I think they both have
Speaker 1: played well here. But your thoughts on the potential of
Speaker 1: the Jazz doing anything at all with either Lowry or Walker, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 9: You know, if you ask me the same question maybe
Speaker 9: a year ago, i'd had a little bit of a
Speaker 9: different answer. At that point, it'd be like, you know,
Speaker 9: these are the guys that it's going to be really
Speaker 9: hard to take out of the jazz dam. They want
Speaker 9: to keep them. I'm a little bit still in that camp,
Speaker 9: but I think that now the way that I've changed
Speaker 9: is at this point it feels like it's kind of
Speaker 9: fifty to fifty if the right deal comes along and
Speaker 9: someone sweetens the pot for the Jazz in a way
Speaker 9: that makes it hard to say no. You're right, Austin
Speaker 9: is not married to this situation. He didn't pick these guys,
Speaker 9: he didn't make those deals, and if they get something
Speaker 9: that looks better for the future, then they're going to
Speaker 9: do it. That being said, I know that the Jazz,
Speaker 9: the front office, everyone involved, they would love for Lowry
Speaker 9: and Walker to be a part of the future. They
Speaker 9: would love for them to turn into two of those
Speaker 9: building blocks and be a part of the next core
Speaker 9: of a great Jazz team, but they are not guaranteed,
Speaker 9: and they will be listening to phone calls that come in.
Speaker 2: All right, before I say you lose.
Speaker 1: I think an interesting dynamic of this season, and I
Speaker 1: just talked to this with a couple of the NBA
Speaker 1: guests we've had on today. Taylor Hendrix, Cody Williams, Keyante, George,
Speaker 1: Bryce sen Siba, and Isaiah Collier all have contracts which
Speaker 1: are team options next year. So it could be I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it will be, and I have no inside here,
Speaker 1: but it could be the final year for these players
Speaker 1: if the Jazz have done their calculation on them and
Speaker 1: have decided it's not going to work. It's rare this happens,
Speaker 1: but it is something worth talking about. So those five players,
Speaker 1: Taylor Hendrix, Cody Williams, Keyante, George, Bryce Sensaba, Isaiah Callier,
Speaker 1: all playing on contracts this year. That could be a
Speaker 1: situation where the team doesn't pick it up next year.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on the calculations that have been
Speaker 1: done on those five.
Speaker 9: I mean, I fully wouldn't expect that to be the
Speaker 9: case for Taylor and Cody because I don't think that
Speaker 9: there's not enough calculation at all. I think that you
Speaker 9: want as much time looking at those guys as you
Speaker 9: can possibly get, because both of them came in looking
Speaker 9: like Bambi, right, like skinny, a little bit like wonky eyed,
Speaker 9: not knowing where to go at times, and just the
Speaker 9: first summer after their rookie seasons were so so important,
Speaker 9: this one for Cody, last season for Taylor, and the
Speaker 9: unfortunate injury that Taylor gets then set him back a year.
Speaker 9: And so I just don't think that you've had enough
Speaker 9: time to look at Taylor, to look at Cody and
Speaker 9: to know what you're going to be getting out of
Speaker 9: those players, for Isaiah, for Keyante, for any of the
Speaker 9: other young guys that you know, Bryce, anybody that else
Speaker 9: we might be talking about. It's it's difficult. I think
Speaker 9: that this summer is really really important for all of them.
Speaker 9: I would kind of be surprised if the Jazz decided
Speaker 9: to like just make this upcoming season their their last season.
Speaker 9: A lot of a lot of them have. You know,
Speaker 9: these player options have to be decided like year in advance, right,
Speaker 9: and so like this summer, the place or the team options,
Speaker 9: it's not about this upcoming season it's about the following season,
Speaker 9: and so I would be really surprised if they didn't
Speaker 9: at least keep on keep a hold of everyone like
Speaker 9: through this, come this season and the next season to
Speaker 9: get like a full clear picture of what they have
Speaker 9: in those players. But yeah, this summer is really really important.
Speaker 9: If guys look like they're disinterested or they haven't improved
Speaker 9: or or any of those things. Yeah, hard decisions are coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no doubt. All Right, Sarah, it's been too long.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for the time. Keep up the great
Speaker 1: work and we'll chat soon.
Speaker 9: Okay, Yeah, anytime since?
Speaker 1: All Right, our friend Sarah Todd from The deser Red News.
Speaker 1: She also has covered the seventy six ers and the Warriors.
Speaker 1: She's been doing it at a very high level. She's
Speaker 1: won Utah Sports Ride of the Year a couple of
Speaker 1: different times, most recently last year. She's on Twitter at
Speaker 1: NBA Sarah's where you find her. All Right, I got
Speaker 1: three hours in the books, We got one hour to go.
Speaker 1: Final hour of the program comes your way.
Speaker 2: Next.
Speaker 1: We have some college football to do with Kyle Bonnet Gurra.
Speaker 1: The latest on Jake Retzlaff and BYU University of Utah
Speaker 1: locked in and recruit Shay Gilgess. Alexander got paid today.
Speaker 1: It's the richest contract in NBA history, only eleventh player
Speaker 1: in NBA history to win regular season MVP Finals, MVP
Speaker 1: and an NBA Championship, two hundred and eighty five million dollars,
Speaker 1: a supermax extension for the reigning MVP. A ton of
Speaker 1: news coming in fast and furious. We tried to cover
Speaker 1: it as much as we possibly could on the program today.
Speaker 1: We'll see if the Utah Jazz do anything at all.
Speaker 1: There is a world that exists that they don't do
Speaker 1: anything else. They don't have to. They've got the rookies
Speaker 1: under contract, that've got some vets under contract, and this
Speaker 1: roster has presently constituted with the minutes that have been
Speaker 1: cleared up for the young players. Seems like it could
Speaker 1: be exactly what you need to back up Austin Ange's
Speaker 1: assertion that they will not be manipulating minutes, but also
Speaker 1: be bad enough that you hold on to that number.
Speaker 2: Eight pick in the next year. So there you go. Man.
Speaker 1: It is just it's wild to pull up the headline
Speaker 1: and see that Damian Lillard has been waived by an
Speaker 1: NBA team.
Speaker 2: It's just weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get the dynamic and it could ultimately
Speaker 1: be good news for Dame. But when they made this
Speaker 1: trade two years ago, people truly believe that Milwaukee would
Speaker 1: be in the mix to win multiple NBA championships.
Speaker 2: And I get why you do it.
Speaker 1: If you're Milwaukee, you have to take advantage of having
Speaker 1: Giannis on your roster.
Speaker 2: It's just injuries, suck man. It's too bad how this
Speaker 2: went down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously you look back at when that deal was made,
Speaker 3: and there were big hopes for folks here, folks that
Speaker 3: are fans of Damian Lillard and of course fans of
Speaker 3: Milwaukee Bucks, that that could produce a really, really good,
Speaker 3: little I guess, extra run on top of what was
Speaker 3: a title run for Milwaukee. But I mean, when you
Speaker 3: combine an Achilles' tear with a NBA guard, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of complications there. So unfortunately, for one Damian Lillard,
Speaker 3: you know, probably not going to see him next year,
Speaker 3: and if we do, it'll be like a buyout real
Speaker 3: late or not a buyout, but joining a team real
Speaker 3: late in the year or even for a postseason run.
Speaker 3: I would say you're more likely to see him join
Speaker 3: a team on a one or two year deal this
Speaker 3: season following. We will see how that all goes out.
Speaker 3: But hope the best for him, man. I hope where
Speaker 3: he lands is as we've talked about, some more competitive.
Speaker 3: Seeing Damian Lillard in meaningful basketball is a lot of fun,
Speaker 3: and some of us have forgotten about that because it's
Speaker 3: been quite some time since we've seen him play in
Speaker 3: meaningful basketball.
Speaker 1: The Utah Mammoth signed a Stanley Cup winner as Nate
Speaker 1: Schmidt is on his way to play for the Utah
Speaker 1: Mammoth a three year deal, who just won a Stanley
Speaker 1: Cup with a Florida Panthers. The Winnipeg Jets bought out
Speaker 1: Schmidt when he was still on a six year contract
Speaker 1: that he signed when he was with the Vegas Golden
Speaker 1: Knights back in twenty eighteen. Yeah, recently he won a
Speaker 1: Stanley cupp and that's always good. So after a one
Speaker 1: year deal, thirty three years old, turned thirty four, we'll
Speaker 1: turn thirty four next month. Three goals, twelve points in
Speaker 1: twenty three games, help the Panthers winning Stanley Cup.
Speaker 2: So some good stuff there, all right.
Speaker 1: Porter, Before we get out of here, what comes our
Speaker 1: way On a Wednesday edition of the show.
Speaker 3: On a Wednesday edition of the program, we'll talk NBA offseason.
Speaker 3: We'll talk a little bit of hockey, maybe a little
Speaker 3: bit of soccer as well. Tony Jones stops by the program.
Speaker 3: My buddy Everett Gray, former UNLV running rebel, former NBA player,
Speaker 3: now local high school coach here, will stop by the program.
Speaker 3: Belle Frasier joins the show live from the development camp
Speaker 3: of course, Utah, mammit there up in Park City for
Speaker 3: the week, so Bell will give us the lowdown from there,
Speaker 3: and then I think we're catching up with Pablo Mastruwinni
Speaker 3: on a Wednesday as well.
Speaker 1: All right, good stuff, so enjoy that, stay tuned for
Speaker 1: a Wednesday show. Well Saga night and a special thank
Speaker 1: you to Kyle Bonegera, Tim McMahon, Richard Smith, and Sarah
Speaker 1: Todd Fredest sound you may have missed today, go to
Speaker 1: the website which is ESPN seven hundred. You can always
Speaker 1: take us on the go utilizing our mobile app, which
Speaker 1: is the ESPN seven hundred app available in the App
Speaker 1: Store of the Google play Store. And then, finally, for
Speaker 1: what we do in our space every afternoon for four hours,
Speaker 1: check out the podcast page it's called The Drive with Spence.
Speaker 2: Check its It's available wherever.
Speaker 1: Get your shows, subscribe, rate, review, say nice things in
Speaker 1: the comments, give us all the stars.
Speaker 2: It helps.
Speaker 1: He's porter, I'm Spence saying, and I have a great
Speaker 1: Tuesday evening. Talk to you on a Wednesday Drive right
Speaker 1: here on ESPN seven hundred