I love these guys. Oh man, I gotta say once. I took the four down to Brooklyn out of French seventy five and a Mancho Lte just checked him out outdoor.
Venue is small, two thousand people. It's one of my favorite bands. Who this is?
This has to be uh, this has to be the airborne toxic event right as you know I introduce.
You to them. I liked him two minutes ago. I liked him before. It was cool? Man, you did? I did? And yeah, you showed me them at the commercial break? Who's on? Who's our next guest? Mister Howard Beck?
Oh, what a coincidence on a Friday, Howard?
How are you?
Sir?
That was a great bit? Did I fantastic? Did great?
Did I check all the boxes?
I'm not a Macha guy. My daughter who is born and raised in Brooklyn very much a Macha person and a Mancho Latte person. Not me. I'm like, clearly not quite Brooklyn hip enough. But I do appreciate being brought into the uh phenomenal uh tones tunes of everyone talks the event. I believe I mentioned to you just a week ago at this.
Time you did, and you caught me off guard. So I did my research because you know me, I do my own research.
Me and stock. That's how we roll, and uh jammed out to some.
They're very good. So I appreciate you bringing them into my life.
Uh, you're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed them. There there's quite a broad catalog of theirs to explore, so very nice.
So, Howard, the best time to do what the Jazz are doing was two years ago. The second best time to do what they're doing is now. I'm ordering my Cooper Flag Jazz uniform. I am all in now. We have a fan base that's bummed out. But I have not been this optimistic about the Jazz for a number of years. Oh and six baby stack those el's.
I mean, they're doing a fantastic job of tanking without even like they have even pulled the plug on marketing yet or any of the other vet they have been, like, you know, traded Jordan Clarkson for five second round picks yet or any of that, and so plenty of still you know, tank delicious maneuvering to look forward to.
This has to be the deal though, right, I mean I've talked about this earlier. Somebody who has been on this side of a microphone for eighteen years, but spent years on the other side of the doors, where some decisions are made. Teams will tell you what the message is, but you have to watch what they do to understand the actual deal. So when they say things like developments and youth movements, it's like NBA lingo for we're probably going.
To lose a lot this year. This has to be the deal, doesn't it.
Yeah. I mean, like we've talked about this that the youth for the last couple of years, and I think even the messaging coming to this season. The Jazz were not in the category of say Brooklyn or Washington, who have made their intentions very clearly known by what they're doing.
Neither of those teams have, say a lowry marketing. The Jazz have been try trying to kind of like be cute with this or play it down the middle, or maybe do what we call the middle build where you're still good and you're not terrible, and you don't tear down, you don't play the lottery game. But I mean you are by default, if not by design at this point and maybe by both. And you know, it's fine. I hate to say it, but it's fine, and it's probably not,
you know, real enjoyable for jazz fans. But I think Jazz fans, like Nets fans, like Wizards fans, probably sitting back at a certain point, going, you know what, there's no point in winning thirty or twenty five. We might as well be bad. There's a great and it's not just Cooper Flag, right, like the two guys from Rutgers, Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper are you know, it firmly in the mix and like it's not all or nothing.
You know, this is not one of those drafts where it's like, well we're gonna we're gonna tank, we're gonna have a terrible record, and oh man, we didn't win the lottery and now we're gonna regret it all. Now there's like at least three really good players and maybe more. And you know, as you know, I'm not the draft expert here, but I talked to scouts and talk to people who followed the draft, and they're pretty excited to
blot three of those guys and possibly more so. It's it's a good year to be bad, and there's more than one potential price who could change the trajectory of your franchise, and you know, it's it's just the reality. It's where they are.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, for me, I actually think it's great news. I wasn't sure if they're at what they were ever going to do it because the DNA of a coach is he always wants to win. And you know when you hear the ownership group or front office talk about their desires, it's big game hunting, it's ad vets and there was never a realistic avenue
like this has to be the deal. But I did want to ask you one thing because I always hear people say like, well, in Salt Lake you have to draft, develop, retain, and yes, you do have to do that. But isn't that what Golden State did. Isn't that what Boston for the most part has done. And I think and we actually did see this a little bit now Mike Conley, of course at twenty five would been a bit different here, you know, at thirty three, thirty four. But once Donovan Gobert,
you know, Quinn, really good coach. Once that group started to evolve and rise a little bit, then Dennis Lindsay was able to expedite to rebuild or excuse me, expedite the process by trading for Boyan, Bogdanovich and Mike Conley, and those were really good teams. So once you draft, develop and retain like Golden State did. Yes, you added Durant, which which makes it unfair, but draft, developed, retain is not just a Salt Lake ethos like kind of doesn't matter where you are.
That's more or less what you have to do everywhere. Yes, yes, and no.
If you're a small market, it's pretty much your your only path. They Oklahoma would be another great example of it, right, both the current version and the earlier iteration when they drafted Durant and Westbrook and Harden and Ibaka. All that said, if you want to shortcut it and you're in a big market, you might be able to do it differently.
Right now, we've seen big market teams flail and with over and over and over by clearing cap room and thinking, oh, just because we're the big market, they'll all want to flock here, and it doesn't work. We saw the Knicks fail at this, We've seen the Lakers fail at this. The Nets quote unquote succeeded at it when they got Durant and Kyrie Irving and it still did not end
so well. And the Clippers similarly, where you know, Kawhi was the free agent and came with Paul George via trade, and you know, we could have a whole other discussion about how to qualify or assess that experiment, but like it was a success on some level and didn't go where they wanted it to go. The Sixers drafted Embiid, developed EMBIID, drafted Maxi, developed Maxi. But because of the success of those guys, it enabled them to then land Paul George. And again, you know it's early, we'll see,
you know, wait for Embid and Georgia get healthy. But if the Utah Jazz or the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Memphis Grizzlies tried to do the same thing, I don't think Paul George is joining embiid in Maxi in Memphis or joining m beating Maxie in Charlotte. Like that's just the reality of the NBA. It might happen, It occasionally happens. But the truth in what you were the premise you were putting out there about, oh is it
it just a Utah thing? It's small markets have to assume at the outset we're probably not landing superstar free agents, so we're gonna have to get talent the other ways, drafting them and developing them or trading for them and hoping they want to stay.
Yes, yes, well well said, all right, moving on now.
So San Antonio was in town last night, and you know, for me, as you and I have talked about and I talked about pretty often, you know, it became pretty clear.
And the jazz knew this because they had freaking Rudy Gobert here and wem ben Yama kind of burst on the scene when he was young and he was French and there was this video of him beating Gobert one on one and then I'll never forget the first time I saw the side by side of Wembenyama and Rudy and I'm like, he's like four inches taller than Gobert, who is huge. And so the best time to do what the jazz are doing now was two years ago.
The second best time is now.
So the jazz fans had a front row look at what they could have at least been in the mix for and there's no guarantees. And he rolls in and he puts up the dumbest statellite twenty five points, nine boards, seven assists, five steals, five blocks.
There were plus forty three in his thirty four minutes.
What do you think this process is going to look like with San Antonio as they now have the next great thing and now it's on a very good front office and coaching staff to make sure he's properly surrounded by players that will allow him to grow and what we all think he can be.
I think what's interesting Spence about this moment for them is that they know exactly what they have. The whole league knows exactly what they have, and the potential for weemen Yama to anchor a contender for the next ten to fifteen years is right there in front of us. Right. We can all see what he's capable of, what he's already done, and with all the growth potentially to go. The interesting part to me is how quickly do you go into this phase of o case surround him with talent?
Right is it? Are you developing young talent? Are you trying to go out and attract free agents who might want to play with them min Yama? Are you trading for guys, and how soon are you doing all that? What's the urgency? And it's funny, like it's not funny, but it's so telling. It's the time that we live in that already within the last few months somebody had written one of the you know, how long can can the Spurs afford to wait to create a contender? When? When? When? When?
Man Yama? That's like, man, I understand, we're in a time where everything's accelerated and guys get impatient and asked out sooner and sooner. But man, nobody's asking out while still on their first three years of their rookie deal, like they have time. The urgency is not that high, but that is that is the world we live in now. And so you know, look, Devin Vesselle is a really great player or a really good player for them, and
he's hurt right now. Kelton Johnson's you know, got got some some promise and was produced during their bad years. Do they have the right pieces? Are they looking for the you know, for the right pieces immediately? You know, Chris Paul is obviously just a stop gap and somebody who can help mentor Webb Yam and the other young guys but you know he's he's you know, very close
to retirement. So they're they're they're not through their actions so far, they're not showing an urgency to say we've got the pedal right now and become a contender immediately. And I don't think they have to either. Like I, you know, Weyama strikes me as a very smart, very savvy guy, and I think he understands he's got a long road ahead of him. And you know, there's any franchise you should trust on day one as a rookie,
it's the Spurs. So I'll be curious though, to see when do they finally hit the gas pedal, you know, when do they think it's time. I think it makes sense to not try to rush this right now, partial because they've got some young guys who you know, could develop into foundational pieces, but partially because you know, the West is stacked and you know, trying to be all in right now when you're when you're you know, still kind of on the on the rise, you don't you
don't have to rush it. There's gonna be other teams that are going to start.
To fall out.
Like you know, again, we may have talked about this before. So you know, excuse me to the listeners if I if I'm repeating myself, but you know, the Warriors and the Lakers, the Clippers, the Suns all built around older stars, and you know the Clippers are already you know, they let Paul George go. Kawhi is hurt. The Clippers are are on their way down right. The Warriors, I think has done a really nice job of reloading right now. We'll see how much longer they can prolong their their
time with Steph Curry. But it's a matter of single digit years, you know. And on the you know under five that they have left with him, and Lebron is turning forty soon like there's you know, the West is going to start to open up, and so you I think it makes sense to try to time your build around Wembenyama for when you see the opportunity to actually join the elite and have you know, the decks are not going to be clear, like the Thunder aren't going anywhere,
and the Mavericks aren't going anywhere. Timberwolves may not be going anywhere, but you can you can kind of see the outline of where the West is going to be in three to five years.
I want to follow up with something you referenced as far as Webbin Yama's mentality and his makeup. I have never met him, and i've never I don't know anything about him other than the first time I saw him.
I'm like, oh, it reminded the fruit. It reminded me of the.
First time I saw Lebron when ESPN televised his high school game and Walton was on the call, and that was the first time I saw it with my own eyes, and it's like, yeah, I know he's eighteen, but he's different at seventeen or whatever. So you can tell he's different,
you can tell he's next. But have you ever been able to kind of ascertain how this was created in the lab, what the makeup is the people around him, and why he seems to have had this reputation for having the perfect mentality to complement his skill set.
Great question. Don't know have met him once and have not done any You know, I'm not one who's who's gotten the nice junket to France to go do the big deep dive on Wemby. So I don't have anything firsthand to tell you. But he it's so clear like that. It's there. There are play of guys who are really tall, right, there are play of guys who have been really tall, really skilled or just really skilled or whatever, the guys that succeed in this league. And the guys have become
superstars because they've got other special elements to them. And and Whenben Yama's case, you know, his parents clearly raised him very well. He's very steady, he's thoughtful, he seems incredibly humble for all that that he has already been able to enjoy through his success. He clearly works hard.
He's about the right things. And so you know, every team hopes to get a player at some point who has like, you know, transcendent athleticism, transcendent skill, just you know talent that that is you know, you know, off the charts, right, they go without the fine cool, great you can there are guys like that every year in the draft, but you want to get the ones who actually care and work hard and are coachable and easy
to work with and are good teammates. And he seems like a dream because he seems like all of those things. The chemistry behind putting all that together from his you know, his earlier coaching his family, whatever else, all that that fed into that. I don't know. But whoever, whoever helped him, you know, along the way over the first whatever twenty years of his life, did a damn good job.
It's something else to see him, man, I'll tell you what it is.
Uh, Like I said, it's like nothing I've ever seen before.
But we can move on.
I wanted to get your I'm not a huge Like the ratings are down, so the league's in trouble, guy, But the ratings are bad, and you know, we have the deal in Philly with them beating Paul George, and I just I will never ever fully accept basketball players went healthy deciding they just don't feel like playing basketball. And I'm not being dismissive of injuries because those things are real. But look, it's also fall NFL college football.
The World Series numbers were through the roof. But any Howard Beck thoughts on why people at this point don't seem to be consuming NBA basketball the way they used to.
No, don't because it's we're a weekend, and like reading anything into ratings right now, reading anything in their early season trends right now, statistically, fouls, free throws, whatever, like it's such a small sample size, none of it means anything yet. And you know, we had the overlap of a World series involving two major markets. Is that part
of it? I don't know. And that's the thing too, Like there are the people who are way smarter about ratings and how to parse them than me, and they're so contextual and subject to I'll just put it this way, people who cite ratings good or bad usually have a reason. That's usually an agenda, so and I just don't want
to feed into that. Like, you know, if the ratings are dramatically down a month two months from now, and it looks like it's going to be a season long trend and something has changed, then there's a discussion to be had. But right now, there's plenty else for people
to be talking about. I'm not blaming you, Spence. I'm just saying, like, my exasperation is more that I can't believe sometimes how little data we're going to go on to start trying to you know, divine meaning from a handful of numbers over the course of one week of games. It's a little much.
And it's also silly to annoint or dismiss the team after four or five games. However, Milwaukee Milwaukee Howard and we're Dame fans out this way. He played his college ball about thirty miles north. So like, look, I know one in four only you know only five games so far. And I'm a doc guy, but I might be alone on the island at this point. And yes, we'll see how it plays out. But you've got to be a little bit concerned at the way they've looked so far.
No, I think you gotta be a lot concerned. Listen, there's a difference. We always do like overreaction theater at this course, this stage of the season, right, and it's fine sometimes it's just for discussion purposes. But there's a difference between overreacting to a team. Like if you're freaking out about the Sixers, I think you're overreacting. Two of their three best players haven't played yet. They're gonna get healthy, they're gonna play, and then it's just a matter of
can they stay healthy. But you can't freak out about the Sixers. That's ridiculous. I'm being worried about the Bucks or the Nuggets. I think is totally justifiable because you look at the fundamentals and the fundamentals don't look great like the Nuggets have, you know, demonstrably eroded since their championship a year and a half ago, and the Bucks have demonstrably eroded since their championship, you know, three and
a half years ago. The the Yiannis game fit is not as great as certainly they hoped or as a lot of us expected. Their defense is not what it used to be. Middleton's hurt and when he comes back, maybe that makes a little bit of a difference. But I mean, Chris Middleton alone isn't going to fix the Bucks,
to know, I think there's reason to be concerned. And on top of that, my buddy Bill Ryder at CBS Sports reports yesterday and I've checked with a few people and they pretty much confirmed that, Yeah, there's a lot of buzz around the league that the clock's sticking on Yannis, that you know, he's certainly not agitating for a trade yet, but that that day could come sooner than later. And that is worry some for a team like Milwaukee Torison,
for any team with a player of his caliber. And so, you know, you take all of that and then you take you know, three coaches in a year and you know Doc has now had them from training camp on, so you can't just say, well, he came in mid season. They had to try to figure it out the fly, like no, you know, Doc had Dame Doc Damon Giannis have now had you know, half a season plus training camp and this you know, first week together and it still doesn't look good. Like that's legitimately concerning.
So since you referenced Denver, let's move over there for a moment, and you know, maybe we shouldn't be all that surprised based off the talents Excuse me, they've lost.
Over the past couple of years.
They're clearly one of the teams that does not want to touch financial implications of spending too much cash. And we've seen it, you know, with Bruce Brown and Contavious called we all Pope, but they have in my estimation still and honestly, when I watch him, it's kind of by far.
The best player in the world in Nicole Yak.
Are we seeing the potential of what the Colts did with Andrew Luck are they gonna They already won a title, so he's got a ring. But I mean, this is the guy that with a market like that and they're bigger than we are, but not by much. You pray to having a Kola Jokic to build around because you're not in South Beach or La or whatever. Are they in danger of wasting this generational talent?
Yes they are. And you notice I'm not hesitating here, And you know me well enough to know I am not prone to hot takes, and I'm generally one to push back on anything that seems like a hot take and then give you a bunch of really boring nuances. But they're in danger of wasting Jokicic's prime, for sure. One of the things that you've heard me talk about, I think is that in this era of the NBA, there's all these different ways you can now create a
contender or a championship team. Right, you don't have to have Lebron and Wade and Bosh, you don't have to have a super team. You can have you know, Jannis plus Middleton plus Drew Holiday, Right, those those other two guys really really good perennial all NBA. No MVP caliber, No, But it was Jiannis in a great ensemble, and it was Jokic in a great ensemble. But that ensemble had very thin margin for error, right, Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Junior,
not All Stars, not going to be. Jamal Murray has not been All Star or All NBA. Has that kind of talent, but doesn't stay helped you long enough to get those honors. An he's kind of a borderline guy in those categories anyway. So this is not a team that has great talent and has a lot of room
for error. They were a better than the sum of their parts team when they won the title, and then they lost their sixth man and their seventh man, and then this summer they lost their you know whatever, third fourth man wherever you want to put Contavious Calblo Pope. So you've now got three of your top seven players from when you won the title. You've done nothing to
replace them. You drafted a bunch of young guys that you've got a lot of faith in and hoping that they can replace the guys that went out the door. But so far none of that has happened. You know, Christian Brown's being okay, but like you know, Julian Strawther and the rest of these guys, like there's there's no indication yet that they're going to be able to fill the kind of roles that Contavious Caldwell, Pope and Bruce
Brown and Jeff Green played in winning the title. And aside from that, the league has gotten better, and since the Nuggets won that title, in the West has gotten better. And Jamal Murray doesn't quite look like himself, you know. They had a not a great playoffs and and just a really you know, much worse Olympics, and so doesn't have another start to lean on. He's having to do
more than ever. And they just had back to back nights where they had to go overtime to beat a couple of bad teams, including in my backyard here in Brooklyn. So you know, I don't I don't know where the pivot is, if there is one, or if the Nuggets even have the ability to do it. But yeah, it's very plausible that Yokis does not make another despite being the greatest player on Earth right now.
Last one, how then I'll set you loose.
And like you know, Kenny Atkinson obviously is a well respected coach, and he's been a head coach before, and it's interesting watching what Golden State and Cleveland are doing, and that's playing like thirteen guys a ton of minutes.
But I was skeptical.
And you know, I watched the Cavs because we cheer for Donovan, well with some of us do. But you know, they beat the Rafts, they beat the Pistons, they beat the Wizards, but then they beat the Knicks and they house the Lakers and we're sitting here at five and oh, are you starting to believe that this could be a team?
Because everybody talks about Boston, maybe New York?
Could Cleveland have something to say about the East when it's all said and done, Tony.
I like Kenny Atkinson a lot. I've known him since he was an assistant on d'antoni's staph with the Knicks and Kenny was working with Jeremy Lynn back then. Kenny did an incredible job with the Nets during a period of time when they had, you know, no real a level talent, and they were achieved every year. I'm glad
to see him get another shot. And the thing I wondered going into the season was could Kenny Atkinson being a very offensive minded coach and somebody who's you know, worked under d'An TONI worked under Steve Kerr with the Warriors, would he be able to do more dynamism and variety in their offense that could have locked some things because they've got so much overlap, right, Like, I'm not convinced as I think, you know, I'm not convinced Donovan Mitchell
and Darius Garland makes sense together. I'm not convinced that evan mobling together. And there are times when it seems like that team has been better when it's only you know, one guard, one big and then some bench guys as opposed to all four of their of their stars. And he looks so far, so good. Kenny Atkinson's you know, done some things too, I think get the most out of that that uh, that foursome. And this is despite
missing Max Strus, who's their their fifth starter. Usually it's promising, It's it's only five games, so I'm not gonna say, like this is it. The Cavs are now in the mix to win the East or to be the team most likely to challenge Boston. But maybe maybe, especially given that the Knicks are you know, having a little bit of a bumpy right so far, and the Sixers aren't healthy so far, and we discussed the Bucks and so the Calves, right, now look like a really legit team
to battle with Boston. But again, we're a weekend, all right, Howard.
I'll let you go so you can drive your gearless bike to the closest vintage clothing spot and Brooklyn and grab a T shirt for the weekend.
And I always appreciate the time, my friend. Thank you.
Yeah, I need to go pick up some artisanal honey on my way there, so.
Yeah we go. Thanks buddy, have a good one.
Thanks.
Bet.
The hippiest NBA riding around it is Howard Beck at Howard Beck on Twitter.
I say it all the time.
He's one of my favorite riders and has been for like twenty years, so I appreciate his time. It's always fun to catch up with him.