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