All right, Thursday, show rolling along, beautiful day outside. We have turned our calendars to May. Happy Thursday to you. It has been a while because he's a very busy man, and also he's really not allowed to hang out with me, but we got him live in studio for an entire hour. The editor of the sports section from the saw Lake Tribune, Aaron Falk, Happy Thursday, sir. How are you. I'm great. How are you, Spencer? I'm great. It's great to see you. I know you're a busy guy, so thank you for
the time. Yeah, I'm breaking my restraining order by seeing you. Hey, well, you know, I doubt she listens, So I think you're saying, if you want to see what Aeron looks like, log onto YouTube. We had Chris Camarannie liven studio yesterday sitting where you're at. You're good, buddy, all right, Aaron? Right? Nice two thumbs up. K typically wears the shirt of the picture of you from Talking Sports. Yeah, that's that's a nice touch.
I gotta I gotta pull out some of my my specific Camarani merch next time.
Do you have a specific K shirt?
Yeah, I've got I've got I've got ck merchant. There was a period of time time where I think that was our that was our love language.
You know, we.
Humiliated each other with custom T shirts and in all of our friends, not just Camaranie and I. It was it was too expensive and we spent way too much money doing this, but we did it for two or three years.
I mean it was a long time. You have a face swap of Kyle Goon, is it TJ? Yes?
That's yeah, yeah, exactly, many things like that. It's just weird things, you know, stuck on planes, playing with your phone. Dumb things happened, and and and we made merch and you know, we made memories really.
And that's what it's all about. What what is your love language? By the way, eron peace and quiet? Quiet? Okay? Is that is that one? Because if that's one, I finally figured mine out. No, you know, I think you know, if we're going to answer honestly, quality time, quality time, okay, love it. Well, we're about to spend some quality time together, Aaron.
The easy thing to do today is to look at the Utah Jazz roster from twenty twenty one and see Donovan Mitchell, who's about to be a first team All NBA Player and will even get some MVP votes. He might finish third or fourth. It's probably gonna be Shay then Jokic. To look at Rudy Gobert, who just had potentially the best postseason game he's ever had last night. It helps that it was against the Lakers, so the world was watching. And then Mike Conley hit a couple
of dagger threes. To be fair, Mike his age a little bit, but he was really good last night. George Nyang had a good season. Then there there's the boy on Bogdanovitch's of the world. The easy thing to do today is to say, wow, did you blow it by breaking that group down in Salt Lake City, Utah, where it's hard to get talent. Okay, that's the easy thing to do today. What's the fair thing to say about that entire process?
I was thinking about this and I do think, you know, I mean, okay, sure, George Nang had a you know, had some moments. Like you said, Mike looked, uh, you know, looked better last night than than he has throughout the last little bit as he's gotten a little bit older.
But both of these.
Guys, both Rudy and Donovan went to better teams than I think would have existed in Salt Lake. And so if you are, you know, a believer in you know, we're living for the now and playoffs is a good time, and you know we have two star level players and truthfully may not achieve a duo like that anytime soon. I can you know you I think you have a fair argument to be frustrated and say, hey, we should have been a playoff team. We should have given ourselves a few bites at this and maybe maybe you get
lucky and break through. But I think if you look at it realistically, the talent that that Rudy has around him in Minnesota is better than a Rudy Donovan team was here. And I think the talent that Donovan has around them in Cleveland is better than a Rudy Donovan team would have been here. I mean, no disrespect to the Royce O'Neills of the world. And you know, and boy On has not bet you know, it's not the person that boy On was when he had the surgery
in the bubble that that pandemic season. But I don't think that that cast of players matches either one of those teams and I don't think that there were a lot of avenues for bringing in that kind of talent. You know, there's no Garland coming, there's no Julius Randall coming on the other end. And you know, even if even if you say that Donovan is as good as ant or or whatever, I just don't think that you have the cast that supports either of them the way that they do in their current situations.
The fair and well said. So I'll reduce it to a question, do you think because you know, for for whatever reason, Dennis Lindsay meets with a new ownership group and decides like, I'm out, all right, so I'll be the consultant, essentially, pay out my contract and I'll exit States left and wear leather jackets and such. Quinn himself said no pathway forward. So the decision to break that team down brick by brick essentially was Danny's right, and probably Jay Z as well a little bit, who was
still part of the equation. Do you think it was the right call in retrospect?
I think so, And I think even even if you even if we you know, take what I just said and maybe you disagree, and maybe you think that that cast is as good as one of those teams.
And maybe no, I think you're correct.
Well, but for the sake of argument, I think that those two guys had real issues with each other obviously, and you know, sometimes you got to break up and and you know, maybe maybe you could say, hey, if you stick together for another seven six seven years, you know, everything heals over, we've got scars, we move on. I just don't think that you get there very quickly. And I think that both of those guys are in better
places because of a breakup. And so I do think ultimately right choice doesn't mean that it's not doesn't mean that it's not painful, and doesn't mean that that that's not gonna be the high watermark for a long time. I mean that very well. Maybe as good as it gets for ten or twenty years, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's funny because and this is a little bit at apples and oranges, and it's always dangerous to compare eras and different operating styles of eras and the way teams have to go about their business, and certainly the uniqueness of John Stockton and Karl Malone, who stayed in our market for basically twenty years. But John Stockton and Carl Malone were together for eleven and
twelve years before they went to the finals. Right, So in nineteen eighty eight, John and Carl Mark eaton Bobby Hanson, that group they take Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, that Laker team to seven games and almost beat them. And that was kind of the NBA's wake up call, like, oh, that team in Saltag's pretty good. Next year, Terry Tegal,
a random cast of Golden State Warriors sweep them. So if Scott Laden decided in nineteen eighty nine pulling the plug, they can't get it done to the playoffs, that takes away seven eight years later of when they actually go to the finals. Right. Do you see the parallel here? So look again, this is a little bit unfair because we can again be reductive and say one person blew this whole thing up, and he's playing in Cleveland. This was a Donovan Mitchell, I don't want to live in
Salt Lake anymore. Summer at George Floyd Black Lives Matter kind of finds his voice, which is fine, you know, Almo, no issue with it. We have a was it a Senator Adams or whatever who tells Donovan get educated. Like the whole thing, the way it went down, has to
be talked about in order to be fair. But there is a space in my mind that exists, Like Donovan had two years left on his deal, and you say to him, you're under contract, you play for us, and then maybe for two more years, you try to convince him that he can win here. And if somehow that happens, maybe Rudy and Donovan learned the lessons John and Carl do for the next seven or you understand what I'm saying, extremely hypothetic and you can only misbehave like this.
Or you get to that place and you know, you you get to the end of a contract and you basically lose all your leverage and you don't get package back for for Donovan or for Rudy.
Rudy ages out.
Maybe you know, something happens and you know, butterfly flaps its wings and not her fly and here we are. But you know, I think I think that it makes sense on paper to have done what they did. It hurts the heart of people who want to watch quality basketball, right because it was not a season to pay attention to. I mean, if you're if you watched all eighty two of those, you're a Sickoh good for you. But there was no reason to be invested in what was happening
on that court in any meaningful way this year. So if you're hurt, I completely understand, but I think on paper, it was the strategically sound thing to do, knowing that you might not get those packages back.
Okay, one more thing here, let's operate off the hypothetical again. We can misbehave on sports socc creatio in a way you can elsewhere. Let's say Danny sits Alan Donovan and all right, it's clear than in two years you're leaving. All right, so we're gonna trade you to your point because if you don't trade, I mean he leaves in two years for nothing, you get Gordon Hayward all over again,
which sets your franchise back. The Mitchell trade brought Colin Sexton Lowry marketing Ochai Obaji, who by the way, played well in Toronto this year, and three first round picks and two pickswaps. What if you do the Mitchell trade and you hang on to go Bear and suddenly your starting lineup is Gobert Lowry marketing boy, Am Bogdanovich, Mike Conley, I don't know, Clarkson whatever, and Obaji the other piece is Colin Sections brought in what does that look like?
And Quinn decides, okay, I'll stay there's a pathway forward because we're not completely rebuilding.
Or or Quinn doesn't. I mean, you know, there there's a chance there that that, you know, Quinn Snyder a good NBA coach, great maybe great NBA coach, he runs into a situation where you know your voice doesn't sound the same, you know, you lose a locker room a little bit, or you just need you just need to
shake things up. So maybe maybe there's another piece there where if it's not Will Hardy, it's somebody else who comes in and can uh take over and you know, give you a little bit more energy in that way. I don't know, but I mean I agree, I think I think those are our good teams. Again, probably not a championship level team. And you also run the risk of you know, Rudy aging out and being you know the end the on the on the downward slope of a career arc and you're like, why did we do this?
So with a big contract too, Yes, a huge contract, and a guy who as talented as he is does a thing that everyone here you know, can can appreciate and respect, but does get it either exploited or you know, gets get some blame for in in you know, the kind of the national landscape. And maybe that's not a winning combination.
All the time.
Sure last night was great, but so far, you know, it hasn't exactly won anyone a championship just yet.
Well, and to be fair about last night, he was catching lobs over gave Vincent, who's your hype? You know, like Rehetick decides to go by the way good size and girth. While we're at it, I mean, Reddick went all small, right, and so in order to be fair, it's not like they were throwing it to Rudy on the block and he was giving you the Hakeem Olajuan dream shake. I mean he was. He had nine dunks right, nine offense. Look, he was awesome, but it was against
a team that went completely small. Let's see, all right, one more thing here, because every time I like, for instance, the Pistons in the next play tonight, the Pistons have lost nine straight home playoff games. They have not won a home playoff game since two thousand and eight, which for guys, I'm older than you, but you remember Isaiah Thomas and the bad boys in the Great Pistons basketball. Minnesota just won a first round playoff series. They did
the same thing last year. It was the first time in the history of the Timberwolves that they have two straight years where they won a playoff series. We could talk about Washington the last time that they were decent. And my fear is if on May twelfth, you know, the Jazz are picking fourth or fifth, we could be one of those markets that's spinning their wheels for fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years, we've just been spoiled because we've never had
that happen. It's commonplace in pro basketball to have decades, if not, you know, a decade, if not more, of no playoff basketball, no playoff success. And it doesn't have to be in a small market. The New York Knicks from like nineteen ninety nine to twenty thirteen, fourteen were a joke. Is there a fear underlying fear in this market? Like, all right, maybe we get one Cooper flag, maybe we don't.
And the dirty little secret is they're not Cooper Flag away from even being good, like they're a long way away from even being good.
Well, I think you know, there there probably needs to be some level set of expectation going into into that lottery because I think there are a lot of people and even if they know the math and they've heard that number, they think we did we did the hard work, we did the dirty work, and now Cooper Flag is the next step. Those numbers are not in your favor. Yes,
you gave yourself the best chance possible fourteen percent. There's gonna be a lot of you know, there's the potential high higher potential where a lot of disappointed fans when when those ping pong balls are read out. So yes, so to your point, absolutely, okay, see incredible rebuild. That's that's going to be more rare than they liar that. Yeah, yeah, sure, you know, it could be a long time and if they don't get Cooper Flag, or maybe even if they do, I mean it's going to be a lot like this
next year. You know, and you look at you know, what Hinky did in Philly and the number of they got number ones out of that or you know, and those didn't always pan out either. So, I mean, it's just there isn't a magic way to get this done, but through the pain. I think you know there is potential, but there could be a lot of pain before.
We get there. You got to have a lot of luck fall your way. I know you were not working with the team when the deconstruction happened, But what's your understanding of just how how bad a guy with Donova behind the scenes? Why? Because look a lot of attention this year in the NBA, like, how could Nico Harrison trade a twenty five year old superstar in his prime? That never happens? Happened here? Donovan's not Luca, but it
happened here and in Salt Lake. When you have a talent like that, you've got to do everything you can to hang on to him, which has to indicate behind the scenes, it got harry, it got bad. What's your understanding of how that went down?
Yeah, And I don't know all the ins and outs, but certainly there was very real frustration intension with between Donovan and Rudy, and certainly, you know, as Donovan voiced himself and felt more comfortable saying after leaving, he obviously had real problems with how he was treated while he lived in the state, by politicians, by you know, maybe just maybe just perception even but so no, I think definitely a real problem. And yeah, again I don't know
all the ins and outs, but that's somebody. But people with the best information thought that was the best move.
So here we go. Sure, And I always try to be very sensitive to dynamics that I don't understand. I'm a white man who lives in Salt Lake. I don't know what it's like to be a black man living in Salt Lake when I think it's two point seven percent of our city as African American. So it's easy for me to say and I am going to say this because I felt like Donovan walked on water here. And yes, there was the Stewart Adams dumb thing. Say, uh, I just I don't know, Like I said, I'm not Donovan.
I can't relate to that experience. But from my vantage point, I felt like people loved Donovan Mitchell here in Utah.
I think that's true, you know, and and certainly, you know, people love Donovan Mitchell the athlete and the success that that he brought and the joy that he brought to
a fan base. I you know, again, I'm with you, white guy living in Salt Lake City, I can imagine that it would be tough to be, you know, in in that grade of a minority and not see many people who look like you and feel that maybe you know, you are whether whether it's real organ perception that feel like you're being you know, judged or watched, or that
the weight is on you. And there are people who study these things that feel that, you know, say like there is a level of pressure that somebody in that situation, star athlete, you know, or or a voice for you know, a minority group feels and and has to sort of like a process and deal with that goes beyond what we can what we can understand. So I think that
I think that's that's a real thing. I mean again, hard to hard to know, hard to know, whether you know, and you're you're you're putting maybe some thoughts into Okay, yes you're cheering me in the arena, but based on the policies that get voted into in the state, based on what people say about other things, you know, like yeah, you know you're not saying this to me, but you're saying this about someone who is like me, or looks like me, or things like me.
I can see how that que be frustrate. Yeah, very fair, good perspective. The other last thing here, The other thing is Donovan's generation. He's twenty eight now, so you know, twenty five, twenty six when he left here. It's easy for me to say, don't look at your mentions, or get off get off Twitter, get off Instagram, stop reading direct messages. This generation behind us, Aaron, they were raised with cell phones and social media as their friends and
their babysitters in a way that we just weren't. So I never look at my mentions. I've got my direct messages open on Instagram. If people send me something decent, I'll interact, and otherwise I ignore it. But the social media backlash that he took here in the state after he started speaking up, it's easy for me to say, don't
read it, but they all read it. I mean, coaches in the NBA talk about going in to the locker room at halftime to give a speech and all the players have their phone looking like looking at their mentions. That probably didn't help the way that he seemed to be attacked online after he started kind of expressing his views, no doubt.
Well, and you know the old it's the switcheroo there, I mean, you think about yeah, okay, so we were talking about all the negative that comes from that. But for huge, for years, you know, from from probably high school, maybe before high school into Louisville into the earliest days, he was getting tons of positive feedback. You know, brain is fire ring good, good, good, yeah, good. And then all of a sudden, like the thing that you know has given you a bunch of very positive reinforcement in
your in your life collapses on you. And you know, it takes a while to break a habit. If that's you know, it's hard, hard to put away the mentions.
Right right, One more thing here, because you were I still I can't believe you had this experience. You were in the bubble in Orlando when the NBA resumed playing. How do you think COVID changed them? How do you think COVID changed that group? Because I'll always maintain obviously COVID changed a lot of things, and basketball is not the most important thing. But how did the COVID experience change that group? Yeah?
Well, I think definitely there was you know, whatever differences that Donovan and Rudy had uh. There here was another point of frustration, you know, Donovan believing that Rudy got him sick early on in the initial days of a pandemic, when you didn't know what that meant for, you know, somebody like Donovan, you know, because you know, would it
impact him as an athlete? Would it impact you know? Again, so so here's someone who's already under your skin, and now you're blaming them for putting you in a situation that you really really don't want to be in. So I think I think watching that and watching you know, kind of the restart, there was sort of a chilling.
I think they did try to bridge things, you know, and maybe there was a chance, a great reset that the pandemic there give us all right, and then you lose because because Mike Conley, smart guy planned a pregnancy, uh with this with his wife to happen during the
NBA season. But the nb off season becomes the playoffs, right, and he goes back home and you know, throws off a little rhythm there because boy Bogdanovitch gets hurt and needs surgery and isn't there and because you you know, choke away what should have been an easy seemed an easy win over the over that Nuggets team at that point. And maybe if you win, maybe if you if you make a run to the conference finals or something like that, even in the bubble, maybe that sets you up for
more success and a chance to go over. But you take, yeah, we've we've just lost. We don't we don't have that taste. Then we come back and you know, get run out of the building early on, vibes are very very down.
Yeah, yeah, five years ago that you were in that bubble. It's wild to consider, isn't it truly insane? And uh, you know, I've it's very funny. It's like it just becomes part of like a personality. We're we're so old, we're so I feel like it's just like it's the depression for us or something like that.
Right, like we have to talk about it. It's a central point in everything. And then there's just people that don't care. It's not gonna bother them anymore. Let it go, and I'm trying to get to that.
Place there you go, Yeah, let go, let gout in all right, coming up tomorrow, excited for this. We're gonna be out in about at the former Legacy Center. This is a legacy fulfilled, a milestone forty years in the making will be realized tomorrow. The location is one oh nine six zero South Park Road in South Jordan. It's their grand opening. We're gonna have a ribbon cutting that
starts at eleven am. The event itself goes from eleven AM to three, but we're going to be there until six So ribbon cutting ceremony, tours the new facility, appearances by local leaders, dignitaries and sports personalities. Former Legacy Center is going to serve as a hub for amateur boxing, youth mentorship, and community health programming, including fitness boxing for women, seniors, and individuals living with Parkinson's. So come on by, of course,
the legends themselves, Gene Jay and Don Fomer. It is the legacy fulfilled, the grand opening of the Former Legacy Center at one O nine zero one O nine six zero South Park Road in South Jordan. All right, tusks up coming up next on the program, so keep it here on ESPN seven hundred. So listeners of the program and also friends of mine, know that I'm a massive, massive fan of the greatest reality TV show of all time, Laguna Beach and then the Hills. Of course, shout out LC.
He's like a sister to me. I was always team Kristen, but else again, lover like a sister. And I don't know why, Aaron, but every time this is on that soundtrack and I love the soundtrack, and every time a Dashboard Confessional song comes on for some reason, I'm like, I guarantee Faulk went through a big phase. Fair confirmed, all right, knew it. I knew it. I don't know why. Listen, man, I got feelings. I know you do. You know, I know you do it.
It rocked my world. You know this this came out I was in I was in high school.
You know. Truthfully it might be a bigger fan of some of his early work forever. Okay, just kidding. Was this in the phase when you were playing music?
Yeah, for sure, Like I you know this is We're going to Warp Tour, We're going to We're going to shows. We're hanging out of killby Cory love It. You know, we're putting this in the six disc changer in the Nissan Pathfinder, and you know, like just just feeling the world. Man, windows down.
Did you cover a dashboard song. Oh man, okay, all right, well, yeah, that soundtrack has been making the rounds and that's came on. I'm like, I know Faulk would appreciate it, all right, Aaron tusks up. Okay, So the headline on ESPN dot com is this mammoth gaff question mark Utah mom on name after leak. C K yesterday on the show was more interested in the angle of who is up at two am monitoring the Utah Hockey Club YouTube handle? And why are we doing this?
For me?
It's another dynamic where who's asleep at the wheel over there? I mean, this reeks of the whole, like, hey, we're gonna leak the yellow Jazz jerseys accidentally and then say, wait, Purple's back. So it appears that the Utah Hockey Club accidentally let the cat out of the bag, and the hockey club henceforth in forever will be known as the Utah Mammoth, which I think is so bad for so many different reasons. But this is another embarrassing Look, man,
that's my opinion. Where you at with it? Oh? I mean, I.
It's hard for me to get very worked up about something like that. I mean I'm yeah, you know, I think having worked in in that world, you know sort of before, like a lot of different people doing a lot of different things, and you know, again, did somebody, you know, make sure just we need to we need to secure this, to make sure that this handle exists on YouTube, and uh, you know you're you're trying to
just lock it down. And then oh no, you know, we've we've we've confirmed when we should not have confirmed. I mean, I don't know. And then and then the other thing is like, what's the bad publicity? You know, no, there's no there's no bad publicity. Publicity if you think this is if this is the name, and you get people talking about it again, you know, your team's not in the playoffs, and all of a sudden, you are.
You know, it's a there's a bunch of really good stuff happening in the NHL playoffs and you became a story again today. Like that's not too bad for me either, So I mean, to me, not a bad look necessarily. I just think that you're talking about a bunch of people doing a bunch of the things.
It's like not that high level. Does it make the actual announcement a little anti climactic since we know what the name is going to be now, or is there a possibility that this actually is To your point, were they just messing around?
Maybe this isn't the name. I don't think they're messing around. I mean I saw that the comment when, you know, when asked about it, that they said, hey, we're still exploring all three names. I can't really believe that at this late date you're equally exploring three different possibilities, like you got to start printing things. We got to start you know, we've got to have a hat for you know whoever, I don't know any mask or so, I mean, it seems it seems very likely that this is the outcome.
I think it seems likely given the fan reaction, uh, you know, after after Yetty drops off, it seemed like this was the number one choice. So, I mean, yeah, to quote John Paul Chungka, I'm not surprised not a.
Real name, all right, as somebody who was part of the naming process us for a team that at the time had a lot of pushback, and still to this day, when people here at RAYL saw Lake, they kind of go away a second. What I always have to remind everybody that The reason we did that is our initial intention was to be the North American sister club of Real Madrid, and we did have a partnership with them.
A young ck in the stands as a student watching Jason christ nearly score against Real Madrid, watching the Galactokos, and we had becks put put a shovel in the ground. We did a golden shovel at Dad. There's a picture in my house, Rude van Nistelroy ecer Cassius, right. I mean that was the initial intent of the Raal saw Lake name. It's not an easy thing to land on a name that everybody's gonna love. And I hate Mammoth. I think it's horrible. Of the options, that was actually
my least favorite. So again it's this is a difficult thing to do because you're gonna get criticism no matter what. But what do you think of the name now that we have an idea of what it's going to be.
I think a couple of things. I'm not as put off by it as as you are. I think, you know, it makes it makes some sense. There's you know, history within the state. There's you know, some some actual local tie like I think I would have had a greater problem with something that just like tries to sound cool, like Venom was was migrate, Like venom is a thing that's a nickname you give yourself, and it's not like
it's not cool, it's gonna do Avatar, bro. So I think that at least it feels like, hey, yeah, there's there's a utah reason that this could be the name of the team, and it makes sense. Two, I think with anything with naming a child, like, every name sounds stupid, even you know, my parents sitting down there thinking about naming a child Aaron, like it sounds stupid. And then it just becomes your name, you know. And so for the first generation of fans here, yeah, there's gonna be
some people that are hardcore about it. They're gonna be a bunch of people that think sounds fake, it's not real. And then there're gonna be people that are born into it, and it's always gonna be real to them, you know, I mean. And so I think that's that's the nature of I like the name Aaron. Do you not like your name?
Oh, I'm I'm you're okay with that. I love the name. It's it's you know, no, no problem.
I'm just saying it sounds it's you know, when you say a word over and over again or whatever, it sounds snake like this, like how do you how do you make that decision?
And then it just becomes that the right fit fair enough? What's your middle name? Caleb? My paron Caleb.
My parents argued my my mother wanted to name me Caleb. My father put the guybash on it.
So okay, so then they all twitch roo Yeah okay. Uh. From a macro standpoint, Bell Belle Frasier, who you hired to cover the hockey club or the Utah Mammoth potentially for the trip friend of the program Dynamic on air. I think it was a great higher by you, and I think she does a really good job. What has the first year been like for you guys to cover pro hockey in our market?
Yeah, you know, shout out Bell. She has been uh, super hard worker, clearly understands the the sport and it's extrememely passionate about it. I think a great person, you know, to advocate for fans and try to you know, teach a little and all of that. You know, it's been it's been very interesting. I think it's it is there's those are full buildings every night. Yeah, and it is still a very niche sport in in a lot of ways.
You know. I think.
The test and the question for me will be, once this team is a playoff team or you know, a little bit of a run, how many folks are really invested in it? Beyond I'm excited about like the vibes of this thing. Here's a cool new thing. I like going to a game. I like, you know, I like the idea that my state has this versus how many people are like obviously Dylan Gunther should be on the second line, you know, and and breaking it down and I I have some I have some questions about that.
We'll see.
But you know, I think that fans really connect it, you know, just based on our metrics and what people read. They really connect with the cultural stuff, how Utah has perceived, how you know players fit in, how you know where you are in the pecking order of other NHL markets, and those types of things. And certainly less about like is Barrett Hayton, you know, getting in front of goal enough?
Right? Like that those are getting increase right Yeah?
Yeah, those are two very different things, and so the audience for one is much greater than the other at the moment.
For sure, I will tell you this, The Stanley Cup playoffs are so cool. They're so intense, and we are now in a market during the springtime when other markets are experiencing either basketball spring basketball playoffs or spring hockey playoffs, and we're experiencing neither. When well, I'm going to say when, because I'm an internal optimist, you know me, When springtime rolls around here in Salt Lake and the Mammoth and the Jazz are both in the postseason, it is going
to be popping downtown. I mean, that's a fun thing to think about as a as as a guy you grew up here following the Jazz and working uh in the media now for a number of years. Do you have any specific spring Jazz playoff memories that pop? I mean, when the weather gets warm and playoff basketball is in Salt Lake, it's a really really fun thing. I hope we can experience it soon, Yeah, no doubt.
I mean it's hard for me to to ignore, like the more recent memories, but being in being in there for that OKAC series a couple of years ago, with the you know, the city edition jerseys and that color scheme, and you know, the arena.
Looked just it's that's probably the coolest I think.
And honestly some of the loudest I've I've ever heard it. Ricky Rubio moment that was that was a high water mark. It was for everybody there. Uh And so I think that that's that really stands out. I mean, you know, back a little bit didn't hit quite as much that that first breakthrough with with Gordon and you get smoked by a Golden State and then you go back years
before and I don't know, the memory fades. I I don't, I don't have quite the attachment to I wasn't I wasn't at the arena for you know, jazz bowls or anything like that. But that's that stands out for me personally. And yeah, I'm excited. I I you know, very selfishly. It's nice to have things to talk about and actually the matter that people are invested in. And I'll be very curious. I mean, my my working theory and I'd
be curious. You know, what your take is on this is that hockey has a will not be bigger, but has a higher ceiling. Than NBA here in terms of landing free agents. Marquee guys, you know you have a higher potential of being a Stanley Cup champion in Salt Lake City than I think lifting a Larry O'Brien absolutely agree.
And I've been very impressed with Bill Armstrong and they're good now. They're the third youngest team in the NHL. They've got to think the fifth most most cap space. And there just isn't the stigma attached to saw Lake for hockey players that there are for basketball players. And for whatever reason, right, there are probably several that we get into. I think we've and you know what we like here. We want you to tell us that you like us. And we've heard a lot of hockey players
already say, man, this place is great. They'll be front facing about attracting other players to play for the team. You never hear NBA players say that about Utah.
You just don't, right, Yeah, the best the best you get is you know, oh, once you get here, you know it's not bad or it's you know, you'll you'll understand. But nobody's selling it like that. Right, it's a very different thing. And right, you know, right or wrong, very very different thing. And yeah, and you look at obviously it's it's not as metropolitan and as you know, Toronto
or Montreal or whatever. But you've got guys coming from Edmonton and Winnipeg, and and you know, like someth like doesn't look so bad.
Right right, And you know, I remember when Hayward left, I said on air a couple of weeks later, if we can't keep the white dude who likes to play video games a night and is raised in a family, it doesn't bode well for who we're going to be able to keep. And that I think is an underlying fear of jazz fans where since John and Carl left and retired, every player that we've had here drafted and developed,
they have not spent their entire career here. And if you can't get a player here to spend more than five or six years here, it's going to be hard to get a team to gel together long enough for them to be good. I think a lot of jazz fans are afraid of that.
Yeah, for sure, And you look at you know, people with a little perspective like Darren Williams comes back. But Darren Williams was not going to stay right, and I think pretty clearly at that point. So you know, once you have a little bit of life experience and you see how things operate in other places and how you were treated and how you lived, and you know your commute and all of that, Like, yeah, it makes sense.
But you know, if you're a twenty five year old millionaire and the world is endless potential, you want to explore endless potential.
Sure, And I completely get it. I mean, I always try to look at it through the prism of if I was a twenty five year old multi millionaire, where would I want to live if I was single? And I'm biased because I like it here and I don't think it's a bad place to live, but I can understand if you want to experience other places. Really, being a professional athlete, it's kind of an odd thing. Like you're told where you're going to work and where you're
going to live in any other endeavor. If you're the best at what you do in the world, you have control over where you can do that thing, and athletes just don't. It's kind of an odd thing for sure.
Maybe you get traded to Salt Lake City and you decide I'm gonna go to Brazil. I'm never coming there.
There you go. We'll get to the lads, okay, in a moment, But before you get to the lads. Twitter discourse between college football fans it you know, the visual I have are the monkeys throwing their feces at each other at the zoo? I mean, and I don't program my show off of it, but you can't help but see BYU fans Utah fans, are you tampering with our players?
Are you trying to steal our players? The transfer portal in college football is chaotic every school across the landscape of collegiate athletics and football, and in basketball, you're going to lose players no matter what. The days of us getting to know Andre Miller and getting to know Britton Johnson and getting us to you know, getting to know Alex Smith, three or four of your players, they're gone,
they just are. That's a tribune. How much does this back and forth when it comes to covering BYU football Utah football with keV phenomenal short game, I guy Jason on the other side, your college football beat riders. How much of this back and forth moves the needle?
If at all, I think it does move the needle, and I think that, you know, the way we try to look at it is maybe not so much jumping into uh, into the cage and you know, picking up our own faces and throwing it. I think we're trying to look at it as like, can we provide some
perspective here and maybe get to get to a truth. So, you know, right now, the back and forth on Twitter, if you haven't been paying attention, is there are a lot of people out there that that accuse b Yu of quote a quote tampering, you know, and offering guys large nil packages to go south. Hasn't really happened that I've seen, you know in this Yeah, the top was miss Snowden or somebody like that, Right, hasn't happened sms Noden reaffirms he's at Utah. You know, maybe this is
lingering from the ton of vasa stuff or whatever. I think my preference, very strong preference, is to try to answer that and say, like, what is the truth? Okay, so here's here's a bunch of people talking about it, speculation, here's a rumor. Can we get to the answer of what's really going on? And that's really like what we what we would endeavor to do. So I think it can shape and present interesting questions. I think it very rarely gives the real answer.
And to be fair, I always put the disclaimer. You know, you can ask for a public records request to understand what UTAH is doing financially, but you can do that with BYU because of our private institution. So it really is hard to know exactly what the truth is with some of these financial figures. The on three group seems
to be doing a lot of reporting. Jeff Goodman, who's a very well respected college basketball reporter, did report that the Rob Wright kid from Baylor signed a million dollar deal from Baylor to stay there, and then BYU was paying him north of three million dollars to play in provo. The AJ debantsa figure is seven million dollars for five months of basketball. Richie Saunders comes back reported with a
seven figure deal. If you just do loose math, BYU Basketball is paying thirteen to fifteen million dollars ish for this roster that's coming back next year. That's going to be awesome. They're going to be a top five team. My question to you is, why can't they just admit what they're doing. Why can't they just say what the truth is and stop telling us that we're not seeing what we're seeing. We you know, we hear these things where Travis Hansen says, well, we don't outbid people, we
outlove them, we out developed them, we out whatever. The name of the game now is to have your nil in a place where you can pay players to come play for you so you attract talent. It's not to outlove them or you know, the BYU experience or whatever, like why can't we just say what's actually happening?
What if your love language is money fair, then can out love someone fair point?
Fair point? Maybe that's the angle, and so I mean, yeah, I think BYU is in a.
It's just an interesting situation in that they have a mission that is, you know, very publicly stated that that's that's different than a lot of other places, and so it is hard to jump into the fray and fully embrace like hey, yeah, we've got a bag here for
you and come play for us. And it feels mercenary, like we want you to be part of of you know, coognation, and we want you to be part of the mission and and all that, and so I think I think that is hard, but like there's no shame in paying people what you think there work, no take the victory leap for sure, there's no shame in it, right, And so yeah, I think I think it's new.
I think I think it's new.
And I think you have a lot of people that make, you know, at high levels that make decisions for BUYU at large on both you know, academically and and sort of you know, spiritual mission wise and and you know, athletics is only.
Part of that.
And so yeah, I think you kind of make sure that people that have that don't have their minds wrapped around in I l the way that you and I do, the way that a lot of you know, fans now have come to who believe that you know, it just kind of sounds gross like they're not there yet. And so I think part of it is probably making sure that the people that make those decisions higher up in the church and by us academic side feel good about it too.
That's fair and some good perspective there. It just comes across as so on authentic and disingenuous when the reality of the situation is you are outbidding other schools for these players, and there's nothing wrong with that. So trying to spin the message to make it sound any other way, I don't understand what you're afraid of. Maybe it's this, and we should be clear. The church is not writing
these checks. Okay, These are powerful boosters that contribute to the Crimson or what do they call the Royal Blue Collective, and you know, BYU I've been told has at least nine and maybe more at this point seven figure donors. So it is the boosters and the alumni that are paying for the players. It's not the church. Maybe people are scared of making you know, that kind of line.
That's something that you see every time, like the argument this is this is tithing or whatever, and so they have to make sure that that gets that message gets out. This is not the church paying for this, This is not your tithing money, because this is someone else's decision
to do this on behalf of BYU Athletics. And so, yeah, it is messy when when you have that kind of you know, big, big mission and stage goal and then you have this other thing that feels tangential to it, or you know, feels maybe dirty in the mind of somebody who wants it to be much more pure, focused on a single thing.
What's your understanding of where the University of Utah is at right now with their ability to attract talent to and the Crimson Collective where the nil stuff is at you right now? Yeah?
So what what they've said is that they are prepared to go to the full twenty and a half million of revenue sharing once the House settlement is finalized. I'm less clear on what that means in terms of I think a lot of people are going to be at the full twenty and a half and then that's great and it's nice that the universe that a school can now do this directly, but you know, there's third party and il is still going to be on top of that.
You know, it doesn't This doesn't mean that you and Ohio State are equal at twenty and a half, right There's there's more money on top of that. So I'm less clear on where that is, you know, but I think they are, you know, setting themselves up to do that. We'll see how they do that, because you got to come up with twenty million dollars and it's probably private equity, and you know, be curious how that looks once once that that happens.
Who is Nate Bench's favorite jazz player of all time.
Is a great question. I feel like I feel like it's going to be like Blue Edwards or something. But do you have an answer?
No? Well, wh When I first met Nate, we were playing golf together and we were going to draft a jazz team back and forth, and I said, if you had the first pick, who would you take? And he said armand Gillian, Oh, I knew it. The hammer, The hammer. Okay. The reason I'm asking this is the first person can text in Nate Bench's favorite jazz player date seven seven three five three zero seven hundred. We're giving you a
free round of golf to Mount Ogden. Okay, it's the Festival of Tease presented by our friends at the UGA. So we'll give you a PGA tour update coming up. But first person contexted Nate Bench's favorite jazz player, We're going to send you to golf for free. All right? Before I set you loose, I'm gonna ask you a two part RSL question. Part one is your thoughts on
You and I have spoken about this. We were able to sit with the Millers for a while the day before their announcement that they have purchased the controlling stake of RSL. So your thoughts on the ownership transition of RSL and what they did do? Uh, and I have decided to name him Big Willie Goals. So we got Willie, you gotta we got Johnny Russell across the line. So your thoughts on what they did do during the primary transfer window and maybe more importantly, what they did not do.
So before I set you loose, your thoughts on all things RSL.
Yeah, you know, incomplete grades and TBD. I mean, you know, I I I understand the frustration, to start with the second half. First, I understand the frustration that you know you don't have a star striker at this point after selling off a guy who looked very much like a star striker at least for the first half of last year. And I completely understand the frustration. However, you know, don't I don't know anything about uh our friend Bosnik.
I don't.
I couldn't tell you, but hey, you tried and through no fault of your own fail, so I can't really hold that against you. Maybe given how complex it is to get across the line on these things, you gotta have four that are close and you you get to that situation. But it sounds like they got done dirty on that one, and so hey, you know, gotta gotta try again. Johnny Russell, once a great player, now seems
like a great guy. We'll see how that works. And and Goda gives you at least something because they didn't have, you know, forcer was not the answer, so incomplete in terms of the Miller's you know, I think that.
They are not the splashiest and flashiest of owners. Right.
They're not going to go in, They're not not goingahere to lure whoever the next great European is and spend a bunch of money to do it. They're always going to you know, be smart with with their money and see where they can you know, maximize some things.
That being said, you know, I mean we talked about being spoiled. Have they did?
They really have bad teams ever, you know, for a long period of time. So I think, yeah, maybe maybe.
You feel.
Cb about it, but I do think you're gonna have a good product for a long period of time.
I do think that will be important to them. No, I agree, well said, And you don't have to spend NBA money on MLS teams, you know, so we'll see how it goes. Well. Look, great to see you up. Subscribe to the trip. What do you want to tell our listeners about what we got going to the trip? Yeah? I know.
Thank you for everybody that reads Bell stuff, Kevin stuff, Jason stuff, Andy stuff, Gordon stuff, mesyltrip dot com, Like and subscribe, shout out, Nate Bench.
Love it man. Great to see what we'll see a Saturday. Okay. Absolutely. Aaron Falk, the editor of the sports section of the Solilate Tribune,