Tom Haberstrow, Tommy, Happy Tuesday. Just so you know, snowy cold. It feels like it's a February in Salt Lake. How we holding up? Where you're at?
It's about eighty degrees and sunny. I hate to tell you where are you? I mean Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina.
Your home, beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina place that I that I love an awful lot. All right, Tom, First of all, let's start with Porter is bragging because he picked all four number one seeds. You go to the final four like a simp. Yeah, that means he's winning our brackets. So he's become unsufferable. I believe you filled out a bracket.
Did you did? Did you go all chalk or did you Did you do.
Like I did and picked upsets because you know you've watched this thing before.
I did a lot of upsets, which I think was a balance with my pick to win it all Duke, So I felt like Duke was far and away the best team. I also saw Duke in person and was blown away at how professional they seemed like. They seemed like an NBA team with the way they played and the talent that was on the floor, and even though I had no point of reference because I didn't watch any other team really in person, it just felt like this was a team that was destined to win it all.
And when Cooper Flyag got hurt in the ACC Tournament, I was actually there here in Charlotte, and I was a little worried because I was like, man, it would be great. As much as it pains me to say, as a kid who grew up as a Tar Heel fan going to UNC basketball camp and then going to nearby Wake Forest, there was a common enemy among those
two schools, and that's the Duke. But I found myself watching Cooper Flag and Malwatch and Canipple and these guys and feeling like they are it's already scripted that they are that good and that talented, and it was good to see that Flag made it back on the floor, and I just feel like this team is that much better than everybody else the rest of my bracket. Let's not talk about that.
Yeah, no, I'm in the same boat. I'm in the same boat.
But let's stay in this space for a moment, because you know, I think there are a lot of people that casually watch sports that maybe a lot don't really watch college basketball, but they heard the name Cooper Flag all year, and certainly around here, if you're a basketball fan, you can't have a conversation without hearing Cooper Flag. Because the Jazz just became the first Jazz team in fifty plus years of an organizational history where they've lost sixty games.
It's never happened. This is the worst team we've ever had here.
And so whenever the Jazz come up, it's not very long Timmy before Cooper Flag's name come up comes up. So a lot of these people are probably watching him for the first time, and it, you know, during this tournament experience. It continues to be wild to me that in this day of college basketball, with the COVID year allowing extra eligibility and the transfer portal allowing players to play sometimes into their mid to late twenties. I think
Trevinnell from BYU is about to turn twenty seven. He's older than Luca Cooper Flagg, who should be a senior in high school reclassified just turn eighteen in December, seems to dominate in every single way every time he plays. He's not perfect, nobody is, But what has been your takeaway with the performance of Cooper Flag during this tournament run for Duke.
I think it will help clarify things if you think of Cooper Flag as the white KG. He is so good at everything like KG was. KG at his peak, was the MVP of the NBA. He could pass, he could run, he could dribble, he could shoot. He had this fluidity to this game that it seemed like he
was born to play basketball. That God himself looked at this dude and was like, you know what, You're going to play the sport of basketball because your body, your energy, your competitiveness, all of it manifests itself in this sport where you take a bouncy ball and throw it through an orange ring ten feet off the ground. And it's hard because he's white that we have a tough time comparing him to guys other than Andrea Kira Lenko or you know, that's an often comparison for a Cooper Flag.
And it's tough because our minds play, our mind plays tricks on us that our brain wants to compare him to someone who looks like him. And I'll remind you that KG, the kid or the ticket he came into the league as a as a teenager, as basically an eighteen year old who averaged in his rookie season ten points and six rebounds. And I will remind you that that guy was considered the most competitive, was considered the most menacing, was considered the most talented, also the most
unsupportive superstar of his class. You look at how long it took for him to win a championship. I had to go to Boston to do it. And then once he went to Boston, people were like, oh, yeah, he's one of the best ever to do it. And I think Cooper Flag is built from the same mold competitive as all had skilled in every facet of the game.
And if you remember, I think you've seen it before Spence the clip of Team USA where KG goes length of the court in a one on one battle with all of his Team USA players, his teammates, and he's not beaten. He no one beats him in a full length one on one game where it's kind of survivor where uh, if you don't beat him, you step aside, and KG continues on with the next contestant, beat him,
step aside, and KG keeps going. And I think Cooper Flag is similarly skilled in that there is no weakness in his game that I can see, and he has that competitive edge that KG has and Cooper Flag. At this point he's just turned eighteen. I think he's six nine, six ten. I think you can grow another inch and I think the comparison is KG and Danny Ainge famously got KG to win a championship with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce and probably has the same vision with this guy, Cooper Flag.
You know what, you know what else stands out to me Tom based off of his age again eighteen in December, he's a young eighteen. He doesn't seem to get rattled like at all, because there have been several moments. Look, when you're when you're an opponent, and when you're playing a team like Duke, and when you're playing against a player like Cooper Flag, you know who you're playing against, and you know how many eyes are on you when
you're playing in that game. And the Grant Nelson kid from Alabama, you know, there have been several instances where opposing players or opposing fans have tried to get on him and try to rattle him. And for an eighteen year old kid, he's just done. You know, he just goes about his business and doesn't seem to respond to any of the uh, you know, any of the Bay team that seems to be done in his direction.
It's pretty impressive, it is.
And this is the kind of thing that I saw with my own two eyes, two eyes, two eyes, Looney Tunes, I don't know what I'm talking about. What I saw my own two eyes in person at Cameron Indoor was in the second half after dealing with foul trouble. He was unleashed, but he had to sit for much of the first half because he picked up three early fouls, and John Shire put him on ice to make sure that he had him in the second half, and then he just said go get him. And Cooper Flagg was
unstoppable the rest of the game. When his team needed him, he rows above and he dominated. And I think at a certain point in this season the team just kind of let him loose and was like, go be you and ball dominant, ball in his hand, high pick and rolls, playing like a guard, but on the defense into venge, blocking every shot, deterring every shot. And I think that's kind of the apex of Cooper flag is that there is not a part of the game that he cannot dominate.
And I think in an NBA context and the right coaching staff and the right teammates, he can be an MVP because, like you said, he's unflappable and he has between his two ears. I think he's got a wonderful thing about him and edds to him that again, you look at KG, you look at Lebron, you look at Chris Paul, these guys who have lasted very long in their NBA careers. It's a lot to do with how
they think about the game and that competitive edge. Stephen Curry as well, It's just I think he has it, and I think there's a really good reason why the Utah Jazz have registered their first sixty loss season of their franchise history.
So what do you think, Tom it is going to look like, whether it's Utah or Washington or Charlotte or wherever with Cooper right away? Because your reference Garnett's rookie year ten point six boards, we just don't have a lot of rookies save the Unicorn, save the Lebrons or whatever. But most rookies come in and even if when they are fully baked four or five years later, they're MVP candidates. It doesn't look great right away because they're young, they're
learning how to be a pro. There is a toll on the body, and we're seeing that with some of the Jazz rookies hitting the proverbial rookie wall. Although I think there are a lot of players that have won two to three can coun this about a month ago. But what do you think it's gonna look like with Cooper right away? What's a reasonable expectation stats? Generally speaking, what do you think he can post his first year of pro basketball.
I think somewhere in between Wemby and kg's rookie season, something like sixteen points a game. Wemby last year as a twenty year old, he averaged twenty one points, ten rebounds, three point nine assists, and three point six blocks. That's outrageous. But he's twenty one now. He was twenty at the end of last season. Cooper Flagg is going to be a year younger than that, and you keep referencing it, and I don't think people will quite understand he should
be in Debonta's class. That's how young he is. It is very rare to have a guy who is the youngest guy in his class also be the best player of his class, and that's what we have with Cooper Flag. I suspect, you know, some of the great rookie seasons of all time aren't necessarily the great harbingers of you know, future success. Blake Griffin comes to mind, where he had
a year off because of it. I think it was a foot injury, and then he came in and was dominant right away and just wowing people with his athleticism and dunking everybody over, everybody in Lob City. But I would also caution that at his peak, I think Blake Griffin would have had even higher peaks if he hadn't had that injury in his first year. And just because you averaged twenty two and twelve as a rookie, remember that, dude, Blake Griffin was twenty one years old as a rookie.
So I think it's all relative and keep age. If you've been hammering this with your audience, I think it's smart. Guys like Cooper Flag have dominated college basketball at Duke before, but not at this age. This is something else. This is a unicorn of unicorns, and I think that Victor Webbin Yama is a good proxy for what we might see as a rookie. But remember Wemby was a year older than what we're going to see Cooper flag next year.
So one more question here, then we'll move on.
You know, that's a good explanation of what you think he can be right away as he grows, you know, predicated of course on being in the right system with the right coach.
Instead of eating what are you eating?
I'm washing down my own crustable Tom since you brought it up, I have the weirdest, dumbest like don't know if it's a tick. I don't know if it's a habit that I've been doing this twenty years and I still do not eat with enough time during the break to come back without having to wash it down while I'm talking it.
And look, I know.
That I'm doing it, but I just still do it. Like Porter's good to let me know, Hey we're back in thirty or whatever. It doesn't stop me. I'm like, all right, that's enough time to get a peanut butter and jam sandwich down my throat, and.
It never is.
Have you ever had goober grape?
Oh? Yes, so good? Hm?
So I do this Top Chef podcast, and this is a detour, but I do this Top Chef podcast where I interview and recap Top Chef episodes, which means I get to interview some of the best chefs in the world. And in this little serendipitous side project that I have, I talked to Sarah Bradley, who's one of the best chefs in the world, James Beard nominee. She's out of Kentucky.
She's incredible. And I had this confession that I was like, I love goober grape and she goes me too, I have it all the time, nice and it made me feel like, you know what, it's okay, Spence, if you need to do a lunchable or incrust the bowl or a goober grape, that's okay. Some of the best chefs in the world with the most pristine palettes also agree it's delicious. And I do think you're onto a question
and I interrupted you so rudely. So if you'd like to continue, we can, or if we want to sidebar this into a food podcast, we can as well.
I'm down to do that, just so you know. I mean, for a little context here, I was in Vegas yesterday for the Utah men's basketball game, and when they lost, I booked my flight for this morning and the only flight got me back thirty minutes before the show, so I had to rush home, grab whatever I had to snack on, rush back down.
To the studio, and here we are. So they're a.
Little tread off the tires, running on fumes a little bit, but you do what you gotta do. So I will reset the question and then I'll just let you run with it, and I'll make it shorter instead of another weird you know. Tendency I have is to be long with questions and too long with goodbyes. But let's move on. What do you think Cooper Flag looks like? Fully developed in the NBA?
Yeah, I mean maybe I should have held this, but I think KG two way Superstar, super impressive, Leadership Skills Champion, MVP, that's the ceiling. That's the ceiling. Victor Webbin Yama, because of his size and his skill, I think he has goat upside and his most recent diagnosis with deep van Thrombosa's notwithstanding, I think if he overcomes that, he has goat potential. Does Cooper Flag have goat potential. Look, I think he can be a massively successful NBA player. Does
he have goat potential written on him? I don't think in the same way that Wemby does. But I also think that there's a tier below Wemby and Lebron and I would probably put Cooper Flag in their KG where it's it's filled with guys like Shaq and Tim Duncan, where it's they're not in the goat conversation, but they're considered one of the very best at their position. I think Cooper Flag somewhere in the Tim Duncan KG range is his ceiling.
So if the Jazz draft him, okay, Because we talked last week about this, this two tiered kind of debate that's going on out here about what the Jazz would do if they grab Cooper Flag. And after a couple of shows last week, you know, they're guys over there that listening to the show. They're NBA guys, and they like, you know, guests like you and Tim and may committiment
all the guests that we have. So I've been told like, if they are able to grab Cooper Flag, this does not indicate they're gonna hemorrhage the rest of the roster and start with just him, like their timeline would start just now. I think they like Lowry a lot. You know, the Lowry Marketing of the past couple of years has been forced to play in the sandbox with children, and he was an All Stars first year here, but he had Mike Conley next to him and some other veteran pieces.
He hasn't looked the same because he doesn't have teammates that know how to play pro basketball yet. And I think they love Walker, so that that would be your front court. Walker Kessel, Lowry Market and Cooper Flag. I have a ton of questions about almost everybody else on the roster, But what do you think the Jazz would look like next year if they basically bring back the bulk of their roster and they add Cooper Flag to it, what does that look like?
I think that's a playoff team if you have a motivated Larry Markinen and a coach that understands the mission and will hardy and understands this is less about a development year and about a winning year. I do the Blazers games as the analytics analytics insider, and one of the things that I've been tracking is like when the team realized it was not just in a developmental year, they were in a results year. Halfway through the season, they have the top five defense and an average offense,
and that resulted in a ton of winning. And sometimes it happens that quickly, is that you think that it's a developmental year, retooling, tanking year, whatever you want to call it. There's a moment in time where they realize, wait a minute, why are we trying to develop skills without like trying to win these games. And I think that would be the case next year. Is marketing is
good enough. I think he's tall, Klay Thompson. Offensively, he might not be the point of attack defender that Clay was at his peak, but you put that skill set next to Cooper Flag and then you have a rim protector like Walker Kessler, They're gonna win a lot of games. And I think with the playing tournament the way it is, where twenty teams have an ability to get into playoffs at a thirty, I think they would be very much
in that conversation. Now, I think that would be premature to suggest that that's when you build up into a title contender, is start adding disgruntle veterans superstar players from other teams and say, let's try to win right now with an aging veteran. I don't think that they should go trade for Kevin Durant this summer if they land Cooper Flag, but if it was John Morant, or if it's someone else that was younger and might be able
to be had. Deer and Fox comes to mind. With the San Antonio Spurs, they did something like that in year two. Significantly into year two they said, let's go get a Deer and Fox and accelerate this timetable a little bit. I could see how after year one the Utah Jazz would reevaluate and say, all right, now, let's go get another guy. Let's get a shooter who can distribute the rock and not have Cooper Flag having create
everything that might happen after year one. But I think in year one can realistically with Cooper Flag on the team and with a re engineered Schwalker Kessler and Larry Markinen, I think you could win a lot of games with those three.
So, based off of your history, the Jazz in this well, I'm supposed to call it a tear down, but I will not. During this rebuild process, the draft capital that they have received from the Gobart and the Mitchell deal, bit pieces of draft capital from other deals Conley Bogdanoviconio. All that stuff that combined with our own so far has bred two top ten picks. One is Taylor Hendrix.
And I actually still think Taylor has a chance. We just don't know because he got hurt so early, and all indicators are he's getting close to, you know, getting back, and he should be ready to start next year. So I'm gonna put Taylor aside for a moment and I'm
gonna hone in on Cody Williams. And I'm going to try to do this without being unfair, because he's twenty years old playing for a team during his rookie season without a lot of grown ups in the locker room, you know, to really help him understand what he needs to do. But the fact of the matter is there just has not been much of anything Tom to look at to make you think the Jazz may have made
the right decision. I'm not saying they did or they did not, because it would be a fool's air and to anoint or dismiss a twenty year old, but they're just you know, even when he was down with the stars, there were moments here or there, but nothing really consistent. And as Will has leaned into playing young players and giving Cody minutes and starts, you see a lot of bad decisions. You don't see a lot of good shooting. You don't see a lot of finishing with physicality. He
gets pushed around on defense because he's thin. I just think you'll want to see a little bit more throughout the course of the season from a top ten pick to indicate that maybe you made the right decision. So what's fair to say about a rookie year from a young man who just simply has not shown much of anything as far as promised that you know, maybe the Jazz made the right call there.
It's tough because you know, the school thought of like let a guy I play through his mistakes and he will learn and he will get better. I think this is more in the Tom Thibodeau school of thinking is you've got to learn by playing, and that can hurt also. I mean, you imagine a player that fails so much that they become almost psyched out that they are seeing so much failure that they can't see the light. And what we're seeing with Cody Williams is he's played fifty games.
It's happenging about twenty minutes per game. And we've never seen a player in NBA history with this low productivity with this many minutes in their rookie season. So I'm going to say that again, Cody Williams with a three point seven player efficiency rating might not be the best metric to go by, but I'll just give you this as an example of his productivity levels. He's shooting thirty two percent from the floor. His true shooting percentage is
forty one. The numbers are gory, but when you compare it to all rookies who have played one thousand minutes in their rookie season, he ranks dead last in the NBA history. And so that's two. It's telling me two things. One he's not very productive, but two there's you know, there's reasons why he's getting so much playing time. Is because they have an incentive structure. They're responding to an inside of structure that rewards teams for being bad or
not winning games. And so in another climate or another team, he might not get any run and he might be in the G League the whole time. But under this Utah Jazz team, you're looking at Nicolos Ketish Peely, the Denver high draft pick who had a four point nine peer his his rookie season. Dante Exum a better success story, but also one that Utah had five point seven, Austin
Rivers five point nine. The success story you want to point to is Demonisa Bonus was at six point nine and okay see and later became a perennial All Star candidate who was thirteenth on this list. That Cody Williams is first, I don't know if it's one you want to be first. In Rashad Vaughan from Milwaukee Buck, you might not know him well. He was nineteen and had a four point two per. This is all to say a lot of these players in this conversation are not hits.
There are players that have hit that. Danny Avdya is another one that had a really tough rookie season and has now developed into a guy who's a twenty to ten guy over his last fifteen games. It can't happen, but just like in anything else, you'd rather be on the other end of that spectrum than this one, and I think it's tough to grade him based on the goals of this season, but there's no doubt about it. What you're sniffing, it smells that and that is the
rookie season for Cody Williams. That is statistically among the worst that we've seen.
With this kind of minutes, Tom, where can people go find the compendium of projects that you find your self undertaking at all times?
For the next couple of weeks the Blazers broadcast. If you're watching on League Pass and you want more of these numbers on the Blazers games, we can we can do that for you on League Pass. Otherwise, I'm at Yahoo Sports twice a week, one on the Kevin O'Connor Show and one on The Big Number with Dan Devine. Also at tomdefinder dot com and Basketball Illuminati, the podcast every week with Amin al Hassen and producer Anthony Mays.
So it's a lot of stuff, but you can probably just catch me over on ex Tom Haverstrow and find all the many things that I do on this pinwheel.
Good stuff, my friend. Appreciate the time, have a good week, Okay.
You got it, Spence, Enjoy the uncrustables.
Oh yeah, I will, I will, I got busted. I thought I had cleared it out. I drank water.
I thought I got it down during the break, But there was you know, a little remnant. If you can eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, they're remnants.
Okay, do not look at me that way. There are remnants of a sandwich you Uh yeah, you could hear it right, all right?
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