But our next guest joins us on a very consistent basis with a lot to get to. On a Monday afternoon, we welcome in Tom Haberstrow. Tommy, Happy Monday man. How are we doing. I'm doing great man.
How are you?
I'm well? I'm well.
So some unexpected news dropped in our market today is the Utah Jazz and Will Hardy have agreed to a multi year contract extension through twenty thirty one. Now, as you know, when they signed Will in twenty twenty two, it was a five year deal, three guaranteed years, then two team options. They had already picked up both of those options, so prior to today he was under contract through twenty twenty five. Now he's under contract through twenty thirty one. Tommy,
he gets a nine year runway. This doesn't happen often. What are your thoughts.
I think it's a great indication of the trust between the front office and Hardy. Despite the record seventeen and sixty five, you get a six year extension basically through twenty thirty one, after having the worst record in the NBA. This is very clear that everyone's on the same page
of what this is all about. Right, They all know what time it is is that Hardy, given the personnel and the objective, which is very clear, you don't extend the head coach for having the worst record in the league unless that is the goal, or at least that
is part of the plan. And Hardy has had to deal with a lot of in and out players, differing incentive structures where you would think that a guy with not just this year, but last year going thirty one and fifty one, the year before that thirty seven to forty five. The Utah Jazz win count has gone down in each of the three years that Will Hardy has coached.
But that's kind of all part of the plan, and they, I think have the right process and they are sticking by him in the same way that the Portland Trailblazers did the same thing with Chauncey Billips this offseason, and these organizations are I think, look looking after what Mark Deagnel and Emo Udoka did with Houston and saying, you know what, I think we should stick by our coach if he is demonstrating that he's about all the right things and getting the guys ready and all about development
long term. We're not just going to let this guy go. Once things start getting good, we're going to stick by them and let them see through this. And I think it's a new day in the NBA where you're seeing guys get that opportunity. And on the other side, Will Hardy is in a profession in which Michael Malone and
Taylor Jenkins get fired days before the postseason. So it's a very unusual coaching market right now, and I think it's an indication, it's a testament to Will Hardy and his professionalism that he was able to see this through enough to get to the other side. And that's really exciting if you're Will Hardy, And I want.
To be very clear, in a profession where you are essentially hired to be fired, when an ownership group in a front office offers you this opportunity, you do not turn it down. But Tom, I've been talking about this throughout the course of the past month or so. You know, when the playoffs roll around, you're always reminded about how many cities and how many organizations have had sometimes decades of futility and very long stretches in between competitive teams.
We've never had that here. We just haven't.
We've had two and three years of a Scott Layden pivot or a Dennis Lindsay or a Kevin O'Connor pivot, and a Dennis lindsay pivot, and pretty quickly had been able.
To get back to respectability and competitiveness.
And I do not think we are close here now to seeing that happen anytime soon.
So is there a part of this where Will Hardy.
Is taking a little bit of a risk Because from my prism, Will checks all the boxes. He's a great communicator, his players seem to like him. He has maximized every piece of talent he's had here, and I badly want to see what an NBA team with good players looks like coached by him. But there is a risk here about committing to this organization long term where there's no guarantees on the horizon of talent landing in our market to allow the Jazz to get even close to where
some of these Western Conference teams are. If we are honest and salient here Tom, there are three, four or five pieces away from the Minnesotas in the Denvers and the Oklahoma cities. Is there a bit of a risk that's taken on Will's behalf, even though, again with a profession full of so much volatility, if you have nine years of runway, you take it no matter what.
But is there a bit of a risk on Will's part here?
Sure? I think this is a riskless or I guess a profession that there is no safe job. There is not. I mean, we just saw two teams that had basically been at the top or near the top of the Western Conference at one point this season, either the number two or the number three seed for much of the season,
and they get fired. So there really nothing's guaranteed in this league, especially when we're coming off the season in which Taylor Jenkins and Michael Malone seemed like everything was fine and they were going through a little rough patch. But we're seeing Denver win fifty games with Michael Malone and they let him go. There's no I mean, outside of Eric Spolstra, there really isn't. I think now we're seeing Greg Popovich and the torch passed the torch over
to mis Johnson. You know, Eric Spolster in Miami is the longest standard head coach in the NBA now, and I remember covering him in twenty ten and he was just a baby, you know this league. If you're able to get this kind of buy in from the front off even if it's long term with some team options, what have you, I think that's as close as stability as you're going to get. So Will Hardy, I think the grass is always greener in the NBA. You think that it would be better to be in a winning
environment with the competitive juices flowing. Everyone wants to win. The priority is to win every game, but that also is very stressful and a lot of times you butt heads with front offices. And it seems like Will Hardy's happy where he is in Utah, and I can't blame him for the security in a profession where there isn't much security. I mean, the Phoenix Suns are they just let.
Go James Jones.
And hired someone who is a longtime coach under Tom Izzo to be the GM. They fire Mike Bundholzer, they fire Frank Vogel, they cycle through head coaches. So I can understand why Will Hardy is opting for security rather than necessarily chasing the next big job that comes up, because certainly there's a lot of competition for those jobs, and as someone who lives in Charlotte. Sometimes it's nice to know, like where you're going to be for the next several years, even if it isn't a New York
or in Miami or in LA so to speak. I don't know what the NBA equivalent, Maybe it is those teams, but I think happiness as an NBA head coach, I remember standing Gundy talking recently about how on Levatage Stow he was talking about, you know, people were saying, hey, at least in when you got let go in New Orleans or let go in Detroit, you had multiple years of millions of dollars guaranteed to you, How mad could you be? How upse could you be when you get fired?
And he like really was hard on this and was like, if you have any sort of pride, any organization that says we don't want you here anymore, we think we can better than you going forward, and we are willing to pay you millions of dollars to not have to deal with you every day, that still hurts. And it still hurts a lot. And so as much as we want to say, like will Hardy might be able to get a better job elsewhere, a better winning situation, I
understand the inclination to opt for security. Even though they could fire him tomorrow, there is still the security of the front office that he's the only front office that he's had as a head coach, and it seems like they're all aligned. I can see why there's a little bit of risk, but every job in the NBA, in this profession, I think there's risk involved for sure.
One more thing here, you agree with my premise that the Jazz are not close to being competitive?
Is that fair to say?
Yeah? Okay, you know, I was just thinking about this. Who is their Shay Gills just Alexander? They don't have one like who is their Devin Booker? Right, the guy that, yeah, they're going to lose any games. But who's their guy that they can they can build around and say, Okay, that is that is a young piece that you can envision a rebuild around. Evan Mobley, Shay Gilders, Alexander, Devin Booker.
These are types of guys that I think you can't point to Larry Marketen and say that's their version of that, because Larry is turning twenty eight years old this summer, and those guys when they were coming up there twenty three twenty four, and that's a huge difference. And so I think Larry markten is more likely to get moved in my opinion, than being the franchise cornerstone future star in the same way that Shay goes as Alexander is for okay, see.
Oh well said, And I continue to say like, I cannot analyze the twenty twenty nine Utah Jazz. I do not know what that team will look like. I can only analyze what's in front of me. So before we move on, because we got a lot to do. Man, the playoffs have been so fun. Let's get the Tom Haberstrow most optimistic approach on how long the this is going to take for the Jazz to get back to competition at a high level in the West, and what are the boxes that have to be checked?
Well, Cooper Flag would help. I think in this draft that guy is probably year three before you start talking to playoffs. I think in most situations about three year runway with Larry Mark and Will Hardy, I think you can look at year two as being a real playoff contender. That's how good Cooper Flag is in my opinion. He's that polished and well rounded that if he's on the floor playing thirty minutes a night for you, you're not going to have that many weaknesses. That's how good he is.
And so whether they're going to be contending for a playoff in the first year, I think not. No matter how good you are as a rookie, it's very hard for you as an eighteen year old, which he's going to be eighteen nineteen year old as a rookie, no matter how good you are, it's very hard to be a playoff team right off the bat. I think year two you can start talking playing and playoff potential for the Utah Jazz with Walker Kestler, Larry Markinin and Cooper Flag.
But we'll see about the backcourt. That's gonna be key. But for this team without Cooper Flag, it's gonna be four years, five years.
Yeah, yeah, now we'll see. We'll have to see how it plays out.
I mean, you know, every team needs that luck for all the and look, I'm certainly on a daylight today. We'll never speak illy you know, of Greg Popovich, but he'll be the first one to tell you. Without Tim Duncan or David Robinson or Jenoe Bleer, plink. You got out players. You just have to have players. There's no other way around it. On the organization walking line as well as our cornerstone, he's our building block.
Well, he doesn't play, he coaches.
This is a players league, leading us to the teams that are now in the postseason. What impressed you most about the way the Warriors went into Houston in won Game seven.
Buddy held man. I did not see that from Buddy Heeld. I could not believe that he was the guy who came up huge for the Golden State Warriors. Given the pedigree on that roster and that experience on the roster. What Buddy Heel did to punish the way that the Houston Rockets were loading up on Steph Curry is one of the best Game seven performances I've seen a long time. It's not just that he scored thirty three points, it's
the expectation level. Like Buddy Heal, has never been a playoff performer, and in fact, Buddy Healed coming into the last season, I'm not so sure he has won a
playoff game ever. And so like Buddy Heald has never been big in this moment because he's never really been big on a good team before, and so when you see what he did on Sunday Night, where he's coming in there as a guy who's never won a playoff game in his life heading into this series and then coming up big in a two seven upset where he's making everything and make the smart play, moving the ball when he has to, taking advantage, and being aggressive when
he has to. Buddy Healed and the way that he continued to make him so valuable on the floor was something that I needed to see before I believed it. Like acquiring Buddy Heel to the regular seasons one thing, but to see that Buddy Heal can go thirty seven minutes in a playoff Game seven and be one of the best players on the floor and lead the game in scoring is another level and a weapon on the Golden State Warriors that they're gonna need in this next
years against Minnesota. I don't know about you, Spence, Like I'm a Steph Curry believer, but I didn't realize that this is gonna be the first series in which the Golden State Warriors are the underdog in the last decade. Like that's astounding to me that they've never been the underdog in a series until now in the last ten years, ten years, and part of that is the size advantage that Minnesota has. But I still I still picked the Warriors. I have Warriors in seven. They've won the last three
games against Minnesota. That was even before Jimmy Butler. Kevon Looney was not a huge performer in the entirety of this series against Houston, but I think he's gonna be big against Rudy Gobert. And I just if we saw that from Buddy held, I needed to see it in
a game seven. Uh, that's a new dimension for the Warriors that they're gonna have that release valve when they load up on Steph Curry with that size and they passed to Draymond Green, they cancredibly passed the Buddy Heald and get get an open shot and have him hit that. So that was man, that was a surprise. That was like in a finale, a season finale where they reveal the killer and you're like that that guy like I did not I did not know he had it in him.
And I was very impressed with Buddy Heald and they're gonna need against Minnesota.
All right, let's go back to Saturday, and you know there are there are simply stretches. And this might say as much about the Clippers as it does about Denver, but there's there was about a fourteen or fifteen minute stretch between the second and the third quarter. When Denver plays like that, you just go there as good as any team left, including Boston or okay see. And maybe it was lack of effort from the Clippers. It was just a decent Kawhi game. And you wrote on this,
so I will stand in this microphone. It was yet another Game seven failure from James Harden, and you have doubted in the case. Maybe that's not the fairest narrative in the world, but was Game seven and baller in Was that more about who Denver can be when they do what they did the clips over the second and the third quarter? Or was that an indictment on the clips or maybe a bit of both.
Man. I think James Harden is really really difficult to rally around in the playoffs when it gets deep into a series. For this reason, he is a three shots out the likes we have never seen in the NBA, and in the regular season that works. He is unbelievably good on the perimeter at hitting threes and being able to draw that three shots out, he gets his legs taken out from under him. He exaggerates contact. He gets
that call. But as these games get deeper into a series and the referees have seen James Harden and the way that Denver's playing him, He's not getting that call, and Denver made them pay. Look, James Harden is not the biggest choke artist in game sevens in NBA history.
I ran the numbers, I've looked at the tape. This guy has had some duds, but he has shown up in game sevens before, and his decline from his regular regular season performance, postseason performance to Game seven, his Game seven drop off isn't nearly as seismic as some other players in the NBA. And it's crazy to say this on the surface, but jokicch just has some duds in Game seven, fallen off from his normal performances. I'm not saying James Harden is better than Jokich. Certainly we saw
what happened in Game seven. But the issue with James Harden is he can't shoot in these big moments. He was one of four from Downtown, two of eight for the game, and he I think, lets the referees and the whistle get in his head a little bit where he's like, if I'm not getting these foul calls, I have to turn into role player playmaker. And you saw thirteen assists that just two turnovers. Wasn't looking for his shot.
Denver knew that he had another great first quarter coming out, and it just seems like he loses steam and the Clippers just aren't young enough to rely on Kawhi Leonard and be like, all right, when James doesn't have it going, we can just go to Kawhi. As the season goes on and the postseason goes on. I just think it's harder and harder to compensate for Harden in game six or game seven, and when he shifts into playmaker mode and pass first guy, he needs someone who's got that
Alpha in him. And right now at James Harden stage of his career, look, James Harden is the all time leading steals guy in a game seven. He's one of the best shot blockers, is over a block per game in game sevens. He's fourth all time in assists per game in game sevens. He's got a really good efficiency
metric in Game sevens. The problem is he just can't hit threes, and a lot of that I think has to do with the officiating and the fact that they were swallowing those whistles and saying, we're not going to fall for it. We're not going to fall for the Oki dope. When you fall onto the ground, Denver is gonna get that ball and they're going to go the other direction. There's a possession in the second quarter highlight on a Tomdefinder dot com that signified the problems when
you build around James Harden. He's not getting those foul calls. He's just another guy, all right.
Moving over now, if I told you that the Calves are in trouble, would you? And I felt like this before game one, I mean Indiana since January when Rick Carlisle made some adjustments to the rotation and they got healthy, they've just been kind of one of those teams that's
a total pain in the ass. And I always try to be fairer because I hear a lot of you know, Donovan Mitchell playoff narratives, and Donovan has had his fair share of when the lights are at their brightest and when his teams have an opportunity to take that next step he hasn't necessarily delivered. I've also watched him drop half one hundred in playoff games a couple of times, and I think he has five forty plus playoff games and two fifty plus playoff games, so it's not like
he's never getting it done in the postseason. But there is something about this matchup. And if I'm a Cavs fan, man, I'm a bit concerned.
Tell me your thoughts.
I'm not, I'm not. I think this is a macro miss league. And just like in Utah, when you have a team that predicated on three point shooting, you got to hit those shots. And you know what, that's true for every team in the league, like Indiana shut the heck out of the ball. Nineteen of thirty six made over fifty three percent of their three balls in that game. The Calves, led by Donovan Mitchell only at nine to thirty eight, one of the worst three point shooting performances
in Calves history. That's not going to do it. You lost thirty points in the three point calm. The team the Caves that normally kill you from downtown, they had a bad night and look, some of that is scheme, but I think most of it is just the shots weren't falling, and Donovan Mitchell scoring thirty three on thirty
shot attempts is not going to cut it. It's I think this is one of those games where Kenny Atkinson just says, next game, let's try to get Darius Garland healthy and try to get those same looks, because on the other side, I think Indiana hit some tough shots and they were playing harder, and sometimes that stuff gets
rewarded by the three point shooting. But I'm looking at the three point calm and the fact that the Cavs out rebounded them, they took care of the ball, they shot better than them on twues and the only thing really that they got beat on was something that they got romped on is the three point calm. And it was a close game until the very end. And if
some of those shots go the other way. I know it's not a very compelling answer, but in a make ro miss league, when you lose by thirty points in the three point column, I just think you flush it down the Troy and you go to game two. They might get Terius Garland one of the most dynamic backcourt players in the league. That will certainly help things. They need him healthy in order to beat the Indiana Pacers, that's for sure. They need to have a mobile healthy.
They need DeAndre Hunter to be healthy. But things are more concerned about the health on the Cavs side than anything schematically. I thought that that game one was as bad as they played, especially on hitting shots and shot making. And I'm not too concerned. I think the kas are I think the Kaws are gonna still gonna win this series, but that was not a good first game out of that group.
All right, before I set you loose.
In ninety minutes, they're tipping off the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. And I love me some Jalen, and I love that the Knicks are at least relevant again and have been for a few years since, you know, basically in my opinion, not being relevant since the late nineties.
So I like this NIXT team. You know.
I know that the MIKEL Bridges acquisition and even og you know, acquired with the idea of matching up with Jason Tatum and Jaln Brown and maybe Drew Holliday's compromise, but they still have Derek White, and both those two guards are capable of really making it hard on Jalen and Tom. They just asked Jalen to do everything. I feel like nobody's giving the Knicks even a Mike Heights and Uppercut knockout random, you know, even kind of a
chance here. Do you feel the same, what do you What are your thoughts as we started the second round series.
I got Boston in five man, Boston in five I mean, I I look at this Boston five out system is way too good and on another level than what we saw with the Pistons that often had two guys on the floor that couldn't shoot. The optionality that the Boston Celtics offense has where they got playmakers at every position. They got guys who can shoot at every position, the guys who can play off to dribble in every position. And I just think that's so much harder to defend.
And then this Knicks team, it's not og and mckel bridges that I worry about. It's the fact that the Boston Celtics have a guy at every position that can hunt Karl, Anthony Towns or Jalen Brunson on any given possession and I'm sorry but that that offense, the Knicks offense, they were a bottom ten off for half the season. They were not a good offense against the Detroit Pistons.
This Boston team is better in every respect, and I just think that the Knicks don't have enough on both ends of the floor with that five man unit with Kat and Michal Bridges and Og Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson, I just think that yes, they were built to try to handle the Boston Celtics, but this Boston Celtics has a different engine in that car, and I just think it's going to be a different series than Detroit and a lot of the issues that the Detroit exposed about
the Knicks but weren't quite able to capitalize on. I think the Boston Celtics are going to make quick work of the New York Knicks. I just think the Knicks defense isn't that good and I think Kat and Jalen Brunson defensively are going to be really exposed in this series.
Where can people get the work?
Tommy Hey, Tomafinder dot com, I really appreciate people go subscribe to my sub stack also at Yahoo Sports with Kevin o'k and Dan Devine two shows a week over at Yahoo's Sports Go check out the YouTube over there, and of course I appreciate Basketball Illuminati listeners. Always a good time on that show, we got Steve Jones joining us, the former assistant coach and video coordinator for the Brooklyn Nets and Memphis Grizzy is going to join us this week.
You've probably already followed him on Steve Jones twenty on Twitter. He's awesome and we have another great episode coming up on Wednesday. As at Basketball Illuminati appreciated Spence as always