He's the pride of Norwich, Connecticut and an adopted son of Salt Lake City. After forty years with the Utah Jazz, there's no one better to talk some hoops. Richard Smitty Smith is back on the Drive on ESPN seven hundred.
All right, coming up at the end of this segment, we are giving away one round of golf to Davis Park, which is a great track up north.
It is the Festival of Teas.
I have tasked Smitty with coming up with a trivia question, an NBA jazz related, maybe Draft related trivia question that he's going to.
Drop on you coming up.
We'll call that about twenty minutes from right now, and the first person to text in the answer, We're going to send you up to play Davis Park in honor of our Festival of Teas, brought to you by the UGA. So stay tuned for that and live in studio. Fresh off a trip down south where he was watching some of the world's greatest LPGA golfers play at the Black Desert Championship.
Is Richard Smith, Smitty? How are you, man? Man?
It was a fun weekend too. It's a great golf you know you you watch the uh the women in the LPGA up close, and you recognize quickly how how precise they are and everything they do when they get over the ball and they get ready to hit it, everything is lined up. Everything is just textbook, I mean, and I mean everybody, every single player. I'm I was just you know, fascinated by by how uh precise and
distinct they are when they get over the ball. Uh, you know, whether it's on the tee, in the middle of the fairway, on the green. It's uh, it was fun to watch, fun to be a part of course.
In good shape. The highlights. That's awesome.
Course was in great shape. The uh the Black Desert administrative people down there, they just uh they go all out to make sure that that that that tournament, the course is ready to go. And I think the players loved it. And look the winning score uh by uh by you was the it was twenty sixth and the winning score last fall and the PG but Matt McCarty was was I believe it was twenty five under. And so the players love it. The players love the course,
and it's a scorable course. You know, it's not there's a lot of places you can't get in a lot of trouble. As long as you hit the ball pretty straight. I mean, you're gonna be rewarded.
Well, I almost broke eighty. There can't. I can't relate to what the pros do. Is it hard for you to deal with your newfound celebrity status after coming on this radio program?
Yeh yeah, this is tough.
I mean, I'm sure people were coming up to you left and right like, aren't you Smitty from the.
Dry I had that, but but you know, I fortunately the radio station here is kind enough to send two bodyguards with me wherever I go, and for that that takes care of a lot of the crowd issues.
Good good, good, well good.
Great to have you in on a daylight today where some unexpected news drop that the Utah Jazz and their head coach Will Hardy have agreed to a contract extension through twenty thirty one and Smitty, as you know, Will was hired in twenty twenty two after Quinn left, and they gave him a five year contract with three guaranteed years and then two years of team options what they've already picked which they've already picked up, so prior to today,
he was under contract through twenty twenty six. Now he's under contract through twenty thirty one.
This is pretty rare.
I mean for a coach, you get a nine year runway, right, And so I wonder what you make of the decision of both the Jazz to offer and Will to accept.
Well, first of all, I think the Jazz are smart, smart because they have a guy in place that they've worked with now every day for three years. So they've had obviously an expansive ability to look at, you know, what they think about him. It's not so much obviously as we know Spence at the current iteration of the Jazz on the floor. It's not about the wins and losses.
It's about setting a culture, setting an approach, a philosophy that you feel you're organization can can wrap its arms around and it can be part of going forward over a long term basis. They've obviously looked at that the last three years and determined that Will Hardy is a
guy they want to they want to work with long term. Uh. He's a guy that they feel fit what they're trying to to get accomplished there and uh, and so it's a great, you know, great idea for them to lock somebody up like that, uh, that that they feel comfortable with, that they feel is is doing things the way they
would like them to get done. On the flip side, for Will Hardy, it gives him, you know obviously not not just some some some coaching stability uh and longevity, but allows him the idea that, hey, these guys believe in me, and so I've got to do whatever I can to return that faith in that trust by working hard every day, by trying to get us better, by trying to get this program back on track the way we all want it to be. And so it gives
him an inner piece. And it's not just about the length of the contract and the money and all that kind of stuff, but it's about the idea that obviously, the people I work for have this kind of trust in me, so I have to true the best I can to return that to them in terms of how I do my job.
So, Smitdie as you know better than anybody, these coaches oftentimes are hired to be fired.
Right.
This is a profession and an industry with tremendous volatility, and oftentimes a new owner comes in and it's like if you buy the house, you're gonna put your own furniture. In if you buy the house, you want to remodel it, so it's what you want it to be because it's yours now. So I get Will Hardy jumping at the opportunity to essentially, like I said, have a nine year runway between the day he took the job and the
day is contract expires. Now, does it mean that he's going to be here for nine years, No, we know the deal. I mean he could be fired tomorrow and who knows what's going to happen. So and certainly this year with a coaching cycle, Taylor Jenkins losing his job after doing a great job in Memphis, Michael Malone wins a championship two years ago, and that's not enough to allow him to keep his job and coaching a team that was and still is in the playoffs and was really good.
It's a wild.
Industry, and I get it that if your will, you jump at the opportunity to do it because you have security in a space where there really isn't security even for some of the greatest that we've seen. But is this a risk for Will because and you know, I keep talking about this twenty one years since the Charlotte Hornets have won a playoff series twenty one year since
the Kings have won the playoff a playoff series. The Detroit Pistons, who once upon a time were a great, great team back in the day, have not won a home playoff game since two thousand and eight. You were part of several front offices that were able to pivot quickly to get back to competitiveness.
They're not close.
And whenever I talk about any of these really long playoff droughts, it's a reminder to our community how lucky we've been about how quickly front offices that you were a part of were able to pivot to get us back. If we're honest and we're looking at the Jazz roster and we juxtaposed it to the teams in the Western Conference playoffs, they're simply not close. With the talent that
Will has in the locker room. Is this a risk for Will to decide he wants to sign on for this long term project with no guarantees that you've got the talent that you need to compete heading this way anytime soon?
Yeah, I would. I would push back on that spence. I don't if you're a coach and you're getting offered a multi year contract extension with any organization you're you're going to take that primarily because as I mentioned I'm minute ago, it's two things. One, you're you're getting that kind of support from the people you're to that we like you, we believe in how you're doing it. You keep on doing what you're doing and we're behind you and we're giving you this kind of support to make
that happen. And then the other part is as a coach, you want to be in a position where you can show that you can improve the situation you're in. You can get a team better, you can get players better, and the stability it brings and the confidence it brings to someone is really something that you have to take
in large measure. There's a smaller part of it, Spence, that nobody ever talks about, which is simply that there's a real world issue to this, and that is that if you're a will hardy and you're in a position like that, you have a house payment to make, you have children to feed, you have a family to take
care of. So you know, when if you get an opportunity to to sign a deal like this to be able to be part of something that you believe in, that you think has a chance to improve with your input in your leadership, and the organization is saying, hey, yeah, you're our guy. This isn't some what I call sometimes spence a fake extension where the guy got an extra year put on his contract because he had a good season, which we see a lot of times in professional sports.
The organization went out and said, we're gonna give you this extension for another six years, you know, which is a long time for someone who quite frankly hasn't had a winning record. You can say we haven't had the players, he hasn't been able to do that, Okay, But obviously they believe in his approach and his philosophy enough to say the wins and the lack of wins to this point really doesn't matter. We believe in how you do
your stuff. We've been around you for three years. We know that you're the kind of guy that we want leading our group going forward. And all of that is symbiotic. You know, they help you, you help them. Everybody's in it together, and it's a big it's a big moment for the organization to all be on the same page in that regard.
With Greg Popovich stepping down, and I do want to get to that in a moment. Eric Spolster is the longest tenured coach in pro basketball seventeen years in Miami, Steve Kerr eleven years in Golden State. The third longest tenured coach is Tom Thibodeaux with the New York Knicks.
Five years.
Here we go.
So if Will coaches through the.
End of his contract, and it's nine years, it would make him the third longest tenured coach as we currently sit here. And that underscores your point, doesn't.
It if you get there right, If you get to that right. I mean, so Tibbs is the third longest tenured five years. That just there's thirty teams in the league, spense, So you're talking about the third longest tenured guy. There's another to twenty seven teams that are after him who have had coaches less than five years. I mean, come on,
how do you expect to gain any traction? How do you expect to have any stability in your organization to be able to build upon something when you just keep stopping and starting, stopping and starting hiring a guy, firing a guy, changing general managers, changing the head coach. Like that's why you see a lot of these organizations can never get anything going because they don't have the patients.
They don't have the foresight to be able to see that if you get something in place that you think makes sense for you, that you want to keep that in place over an extended period of time so you have some longevity, so you have an ability to get some traction, to get some footing to see what's going on. Obviously, the Jazz front office led by Danny Ainge justin Zanik, and then their ownership of course with Ryan and Ashley Smith, have looked at it and said, we want will Hardy
to be here long term. That's the only way we can put some stakes in the ground and and continue to drive this thing brick by brick by brick, and and that's the commitment they made today.
I'm not even gonna ask you to guess who the fourth longest tenured coach is if you want to go ahead, but you would have how about Tyler? Tyler is fifth the fourth day, It's not he's sixth.
Okay, I'm in the I'm in the vicinity, right hold on, let me let me scan it quickly.
It blew my mind when I read it quick because I feel like he was hired yesterday. Quickly, Chris Finch, it's Billy Donovan. It's Billy donald I feel like they hired him last week. Yeah, yeah, I see.
And Billy's had you know, they've had uneven results, right, They've had uneven results. And they've had a team that they put together a few years ago that they thought, you know, you know, it could be sustainable with a Lionzo Ball and and and Uh and zach Lavine and and uh and the big Kid and they just you know, they couldn't get any you know, they were okay but
not great. But they they've stayed in that gray area. See, And that's that's what the killer thing is in the NBA spence is if you're an organization, if you're an owner, you know, we always would would say, you want to be one of the top five teams, or if you can't be that, you want to be one of the bottom five teams to have a chance to improve your your situation going forward. If you're one of the middle twenty teams, it doesn't make any sense. You're not You're
not going anywhere. That's what's happened to this point with the Chicago Bulls. They've they've they've gone with Billy so far because he's proven that he's a winner both in college and in his days. That a case, but you have to have some stability, you have to believe in what you've got set up in order to give yourself a chance long term to have some sustained level of success.
They haven't had it in Chicago, but obviously to this point they've stuck by their guns and part of it's their roster thing that they've started to remake also in this last year.
So speaking of Greg Popovich, we heard from coach pop today for the first time since November of twenty twenty four, and I gotta say it kind of made me a little sad.
And you know, I'm old.
Enough now to have seen people and coaches that I loved and respected in this league age. I can remember the first time I saw Jerry after I heard that he wasn't well, and Jerry and his wife Tammy were good enough to invite me to a playoff game and I sat with them, and it just makes you sad, you know, when you see Jerry Sloan, who you used to being that demonstrative leader, just kind of age and not look like the way that he did. And seeing Coach Pop today kind of made me sad. You know,
he spoke very softly. You could tell he's been through helen back and he lost his bride a couple of years ago, his wife of you know, I think forty fifty years passed, and obviously he's had the stroke that
clearly has had a detrimental effect on him. I wonder, Smittye if you could put some color and context into a conversation that's happened over the years a number of different times, which is the synergistic approach between the San Antonio Spurs and the Utah Jazz and how Greg Popovich has spoken often about how he wanted to use Coach Loan as a model. There was this great clip that was going around after Pop broke Coach Sloan's record for
wins with an individual team. A reporter asked, I know that wins and losses aren't everything to you, but you did break Jerry Sloan's record, and Greg paused and said, I'm not in his league and I never will be. There was always this reverent respect between coach Popovich and coach Sloan. You got a front row seat. I wonder if you could provide some context to that.
Yeah, well, you know, Pop would always say that. You know, early on, remember in the early nineties, Greg Popovich was the general manager of the San Antonio Spurs. He had Bob Hill as his coach. They decided to make a change ownership did in the mid nineties, and they put Pop in the coaching seat for the time being, and he stayed there for, you know, for what seemed like forever. They also, let's let's let's call it the way it is.
You know, you can be a good coach and and uh, and I've heard many coaches, you know, say this along the way, you know, whether they want to take credit or not. But you know, what makes a good coach is good players. And Pop had the good fortune of of coming in right at the time when he had David Robinson in his prime. Uh. They the ping pong balls that year fell their way. They got Tim Duncan, happened to be in the draft that year. It just happened to be the year that David Robinson missed seventy
games during the season, and they go back. Yeah, and they and and so they they they got in the lottery and they ended up put the number one pick in that year in that draft just happened to be Tim Duncan. So now they got Tim Duncan. And then they they they got lucky, uh, you know, with the monogenobiley pick, which was late in the second round. You know, he was he was playing in Italy and uh, and they they took him as as kind of a lark and hopefully that they could get him over at some point,
which they did. And then they took Tony Parker, who everybody thought could be a decent player, didn't know if he could be a point guard at the NBA level or not, if he was an undersized two. And he came in with that group and again, suspence, it's not just about you as an individual, but all the players that you're you're with and and how you how you call us with each other, and how you work with
each other. And Tony Parker was the beneficiary of playing with three other Hall of Fame level guys as it turned out, and they had the terrific run that they did. But coach Coach Pop was always very a complimentary of of of Jerry Sloan and always talked in during the nineties while the Jazz were running the show. The Jazz didn't win a championship. They played for two of them
in the finals. But also during the decade of the nineties spent a lot of people either don't know or forgotten the fact that the Jazz won more games in the nineties than any team in the NBA. They won more, they won more games in the Chicago Bulls, they won more than the Lakers, they won more than they won more games than anybody. Okay, they were they were a competitive team, and the championship level team for a lot
of years didn't work out. Had a couple of you know, last minute shots by a guy named Jordan that that won a couple of finals games. Okay, that's the way
it goes. But Pop always said during that time, we're trying to emulate our franchise after the Utah Jazz, the way they conduct themselves, the way that they're coached, the way their front office runs their business, all of those kinds of things, which was always a very nice compliment, and and he continued to say that whenever the opportunity would come up, even after they were winning multiple championships, to say, well, we're just I remember I remember talking
to Sam Presty one time at a game we were both scouting down in Phoenix when when Sam was with the San Antonio front office before he went to Seattle, and that became okay, see thunder, and I remember him saying to me, well, Smiddy, we're just We're just trying to be like you guys. We're trying to figure out how to Jazz do it and and and do it the same way. And you know, which is the ultimate compliment when when someone is saying they're trying to do
things away, your organization does. But the Jazz had that kind of reputation all during the Miller ownership because of the way things were handled, especially with Jerry being at the forefront, and of course the Laden's running the office in the nineties and then Kevin O'Connor in the two thousands and Dennis Lindsay and the twenty tens, and you know, had such a great run. But you have to part of it is you have to have the players. You have to have good players to be able to compete.
That's the main thing. But behind that you have to have some level of stability and some continuity to what you're trying to do. And the announcement today that the Jazz have given Will Hardy this long extension that says we want him to be the guy leading us on the floor and giving us that kind of continuity and stability. He says a lot about what they think of Will and also what they think about how they're trying to conduct their business long term.
All right, Smitty, you're ready to drop a trivia question. I'm gonna do my read, and while I'm doing my read, I want you to come up with a good jazz draft related you got one.
I got it, I got it in my head. I got you know, I got to think of if I get Yeah, I got I got it.
Okay, I'll do my read and then you dropped the question. It's time now for the ESPN Festival, a tas powered by the Utah Golf Association. Each day of spring, ESPN seven hundred is given away rounds of golf to the
best courses in the state. Listening to The Down and Dirty with Scott Mitchell from ten to eleven, The Sean O'Connell Show from eleven to two, and of course this program which is called the Drive with Spence check its from two to six for your chance to win each day from ESPN seven hundred and the Utah Golf Association detail is gonna be found at ESPN seven hundred sports
dot com. Now, Smitty, it's got to be a good one because we are sending a lucky listener to Davis Park, which is one of the most under the tracks that we have in the state.
I love that court.
Hopefully I'm going there Thursday if I can get on out a guy. That's one of my favorite places.
Okay, So today's Richard Smith trivia question is what.
Yes, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw this out actually for for our movie lovers as well and our Hollywood people. Okay, there's a famous, famous actor in Hollywood. His name is Jason Siegel. He's He's worked in a lot of TV shows, a lot of movies. I think a lot of our our listeners may know him as a very successful actor. Well, Jason Siegel, when he was in high school, played on the high school basketball team with a former jazz player.
We want our fans to figure out who the jazz player is that Jason Siegel played with in high school.
Spence Go that well, I can't say it into the microphone, and I'll be honest with you, I don't even know the answer. Usually you drop a trivia question, like last week it was the second rounders, I knew it was millsap and MO. I honestly don't know what the answer is. So you Internet's loose, get to it. Jason Siego played high school basketball with a former member of the Utah Jazz.
First person who.
Texts that into eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred, We're going to send you to Davis Park, one of the best tracks that we have in the state.
All right, we'll catch a break. We got two hours down on a Monday. We got two hours to go on a Monday.
Coming up next, the NBA Draft lottery is one week from today. What's the emotion like in the front office when you have a lottery pick that could mean so much?
We'll also do some playoffs.
Round two starts tonight Richard Smith live in studio for another big segment. Cut up on the other side right here on a ESPN seven hundred. All right, not to give you the answer to the question, but the former jazz man who Jason Siegel played high school basketball with. It's actually up on his Wikipedia page, so you can find it a lot easier than I thought you could.
Smitty, I got to say, let's get Smithy's.
I got to say, the most surprising part of this little rabbit hole you sent me down is to learn that Jason Siegal won a slam dunk contest a senior in high school.
Well, why why why are you giving like clues to people to go with find the answer? Like?
This is many?
I mean, this is like you know, like the high school, like the high school teachers us. Yeah, I just want to get these kids out of the clown want to get out of here. So yeah, give them, give them the answers.
To the test and respectfully, sir. Uh.
My guess is that a listener who probably has already been able to get the answer, simply googled Jason Siegel and went right to his Wikipedia page. I'm quite sure I did not wet some crazy clue out there. That would be my guest. Porter, Do we have a winner to go golf and Davis Park?
We do? We do, okay, so then we can you can you can expand so.
Then we can say that the high school the teammate of Jason Siegual was one Jason Collins.
Yes, yes, he played with Harvard Westlake, which is a very prestigious private high school in the southern California, LA area. And both Jason and Jared Collins went to Harvard Westlake and from there obviously got recruited both of them to go play at Stanford collegiately and then had they both had very extensive NBA careers, and Jason Siegel decided to fake left go right and ended up going south instead of going north to Stanford, went south to Hollywood and and and that was it.
Do you know Sieagul was a good player at all.
I mean, according to this Wikipedia page, those teams won state championships. But my guess is that's more about the Collins twins than it was about Jason.
So I would I would say so, But I don't know. I don't know any of I just you know, I only know that because one time, in some conversation I was having with Jaren, it was just like some random thing that came out. I think somebody had mentioned something about a movie at a dinner one night when we were on the road, and and Jared Collins said, yeah, that's funny. He goes, you know, I gotta, I gotta call him and tell him that something. I can't remember
what it was about. And somebody said, what do you mean, call him? He goes, you know, you know, I played in high school with him. What are you talking about? You played high school with him? Jason Siegel? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's I call him up right now. We said, get out of here, and he said, no, I'm serious. You played with us at Harvard Westlake. Okay, that's what I knew of it. I didn't know anything about a slam
dunk contest. I'd heard that or something Jason, Jason or Jaron one of them was supposed to be in a slam dunk contest or something. And and they deferred and said, hey, let Jason do it, you know, let him do it whatever. Give him some give him some some props, you.
Know, Okay, I just Jason Seagal has never struck me as like a great athlete, just like one of those big you know, loopy Ben handlogged and tattoos.
Ben hand logged in.
Shout out Ben hand lockdon right ha, shout out our guy Ben handlock out there.
I want to see Jason siegeal dunk. I'm very curious about this.
Uh.
Anyway, we can move on Smitty one week from tonight, and I just found out this morning we will have the draft lock live on our radio station coming up next week five o'clock straight up. We will say good night a little bit early for our show so we can bring the draft lottery to you guys. And I can't remember a lottery as consequential for the Jazz as
this one could potentially be. Uh. As a guy who scouted and was part of four rooms for decades, what's it like over there, Prepper, you know, as far as their preparation for next Monday.
Well, I mean, you know, they're preparing just for the draft in general. Sure, Obviously they have no control. This is one of those things we've talked about before, Spence, where the Jazz have certain things under their control that they can work at to try and get their team better, which is, you know, you know, how you draft who you draft. Obviously they've had several picks in the last
couple of drafts in this the jury's still out. I think, I think, at least my own opinion on all of those guys, whether they're going to be you know, substantial NBA guys of any of any sol But you could control those things and how you do your scouting and how you do your evaluation. But then there are things that you don't control that just happened to you that could potentially fall in your lap that can help or
hurt you know what you're trying to get done. And of course the draft lottery in a week is going to be one of those things that can help or delay what they're trying to do. If they get the first pick, which is they're going to go into it with a fourteen percent chance of getting that first pick, then they would most likely, as everybody would think, be looking hard or drafting the freshman out of Duke Cooper Flag who I think is going to be a very
good pro. I think he's gonna be a very good player. He's going to remind people when he comes in the league whoever he plays for of a to me some kind of a combination of Gordon Hayward slash Larry Bird type skills because he passes the ball, he's a team player, he's smart, he gets he plays both ends, of the floor. He's not the shooter uh that that Larry Bird is.
You know, I think he might be a little bit better defender, maybe uh than both Larry Bird and Gordon Hayward early in their careers because he's a very competitive guy. He's a tough guy. He also has some ability to actually uh be a rim protector at his size at six nine, he has a very good instincts as a
help defender. And so he's He's a guy they're gonna be looking hard at whoever whoever gets the number one pick, And I think, I really think there's there's a there's an argument to be made between him and uh and the Dylan Harper kid out of Rutgers, who who I think is gonna be a terrific uh n b a point guard because he has the size at six five sixty six, he has the mentality, he has the toughness. He's a great pick and roll guy. He's a very
good free throw shooter. He doesn't mind getting in the lane, taking hits, getting back to the floor, get up, go to the free throw line, knock him down. He's got some toughness to his game. So I like both of those guys if the Jazz end up with the first or second pick, it's gonna be interesting.
Nine times in the draft lottery for the Jazz, which is stunning if you think about it. Fifty years of jazz basketball, nine lottery appearances. Of course, the lottery as we know it started in eighty four with my guy.
Patrick Ewing Lady in New York.
Sacramento has been in it twenty seven times, Golden State twenty three times, Charlotte twenty three times, Philly nineteen times, the Lakers fourteen times.
Nine times is pretty stunny.
I mean that goes to what we were talking about earlier, how quickly you guys were always able to pick.
Didn't get back to being.
Good well the Jazz over the years during the Miller ownership. Obviously they had great teams with Stockton Malone, who a lot of people you know about their Hall of Fame careers, but a lot of people aren't aware of the fact that the reason they were good for so long is that for thirteen of the eighteen years that stocked In the Malone played together, neither guy missed the game.
So they say that into that microphone.
Well, this is the thing, Spence. At that time, we used to play eight preseason games. They would always play in all of the games because they wanted to play and get ready for the season. Jerry wanted them to play to make sure everybody, everybody around them, you know, knew how to play with them and all that kind of stuff. So they would play eight preseason games. They would then play eighty two regular season games. They get them up to ninety and then they were always in
the playoffs. So every year spenced for thirteen of the eighteen years they played together, both John Stockton and Carl Malone played in the neighborhood of one hundred games every year, and then next year they played in one hundred games again, and then the next year they played in one hundred, and then the next year, and then the next year, and so Jazz fans became spoiled by that, obviously, because
those guys never got hurt. You know. John's one injury had during his entire nineteen year career was his was his knee in ninety eight in the early season ninety eight, where he missed sixteen games, and uh and Carl Malone during his eighteen years with the Jazz, missed a total of twelve games and the thing that a lot of fans don't know, Spencers. Of those twelve games he missed, eight of them were because of league suspension. They weren't
because of injury. They were because he knocked down Isaiah Thomas Silbo, this guy and whatever, and got got got whacked a game of two here and there, you know. But but Carl missed four games because of injury or illness in eighteen years. And it was funny because during that time it was almost like they were competing against each other to see who could be the most durable, Like, well, he's he's he's got the flu, right is he? Is he playing tonight? Yeah, well then I'm playing. I'm not. Yeah,
I'm not gonna let him. I'm not gonna let him get ahead of me. Kind yeah yeah yeah. And so then you had the changeover when they left in three oh four, And then you had the quick turnaround in the summer where where Kevin O'Connor was able to convince both Carlos Boozer and the metocor Uh to come to Utah,
and and and and a quick turnaround. Then the following year draft Darren Williams moving up from the sixth pick to the to the third pick and and then have a quick turnaround with Andre Kerlenko and Ronnie Brewer and
had a very competitive team then. And then and of course the re the turnaround when those guys were gone with Dennis Lindsay and drafting Donovan Mitchell at thirteen and making the trade with Denver and drafting Rudy Gobert of course at twenty seven and buying that pick also from Denver. You know, that's always a thing that's interested me. Spence's with all the success Denver had with Tim Connolly at the Helm in Denver in the twenty tens, they would
have the exact same team that they have now. The guys they drafted, they drafted Jokics, they drafted Maury, they drafted Porter. They could also have go Bear and Mitchell on those teams. All they had to do was draft them or evaluate it the same way as the Jazz did. They didn't, you know, but those are guys that they could have had just by picking them when they had their picks come up. And that just illustrates how how fluid the draft can be and how different teams evaluate
and look at players. When you get into that situation where you have to make a decision between A and B. It becomes it becomes very interesting.
Jazz have moved down three times, They've never moved up and they've stood Pat I misspoke earlier. This will actually be the tenth Lottery appearance for the Jazz, So they've moved down three times. They moved down last year where they had the eighth best odds and they picked tenth. They took Cody Williams. Year before that, they stayed nine, they took Taylor Hendricks. Going all the way back to two thousand and four, Chris Humphreys was the pick at fourteen.
Martel Webster technically the pick in two thousand and five, but that was the deal you guys made for Darren. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, so you moved up to three to take d will let me ask you while we're in that space, how early in that process were you guys on Darren Because for our listeners that may not remember, that was the Chris Paul Darren Williams debate, right, and like, how early in the process did you guys identify we want do you will?
Well?
It was, you know, it was a debate because also in that Mixpense was Raymond Felton. So we had so the the top point guards in college at the time were considered Darren Williams from Illinois, Chris Paul from Wake Forest,
and Raymond Felton from North Carolina. And and so it was it was a race to the finish line, if you will, between those those three guys as to who who teams thought might be the better pro who teams liked and you know, and you know, in different regard, you know, d Will he wasn't the so called slam dunk pick. It wasn't him. All the time. There was a lot of internal debate, a lot of discussion about the different you know, pros and cons of those guys.
I would say that Raymond Felton was a little bit behind Chris Paul and d Will in terms of the heart horse race to the finish line, so to speak. And at the end of the day, the Jazz made the decision they liked d Will's size a little bit better. Uh, they liked his you know, maybe his toughness a little bit better, you know, and and uh, you know, hey, you can argue it either way. Now, you know, Chris Paul is still playing and has had a hall of
Fame career. Obviously, Darren Williams, you know, the first four years or five years where he was with the Jazz or something, our teams played Chris Paul's teams. I think the Will was like seven and two against Chris Paul or something or whatever. But a lot of that has
to do with the team you're on as well. But and and and Darren Williams is also part of two Olympic teams that won gold and and so you know, people forget how good of a player he was early in his career with the Jazz, you know, but you could argue Chris Paul, yep, he's had that career, and and he was, you know, would be a jazz type
of guy. And uh. At the end of the day, I think it was just decided that, you know, we like the idea of a little bit of a bigger guy, a little bit more size, uh, that that we could put on the floor. And that's that's how that that decision went down.
Who did you want?
I'll be honest, I was really mixed with those guys. I you know, I could see the argument for both of them. I I like the d will size thing a little bit. You know, Chris Chris Paul is six feet you know, and and but he showed some toughness when I saw him playing college at wake Forth. He had a couple of games where where they got into a little skirmish on the floor and he was right in the middle of it and wasn't backing down from anybody. So you could see that he had some internal toughness
that that, you know, would would serve him well. Uh, but you know, looking back on it, I would have never said, well, one guy's going to finish his career and then the other guy is gonna play five, six, seven years after that guy. I would have never said that either way, because you can never know how those things are going to play out. But uh, but it
was it was a I would say it was. The room was very mixed, and it was very uh you know, it wasn't like lopsided, like we got to have this guy and whatever and table pounding and all that kind of stuff. And you know, and I think Jerry, I think Jerry liked the idea of the of the size a little bit too in the lineup, you know.
So that's actually what I wanted to ask you because I had always heard and look, I just Chris Paul has always been my guy, you know, so like I think two thousand and five may have been my first year on air full time, and so I can remember Draft night without any knowledge of what you guys were going to do. When I saw that you had traded up, I stood up off my couch and I said, Chris Paul is going to be a jazz man. And I was so pumped for that possibility. But you had heard
over the years that it was Jerry. And look, I know you guys all collaborated and Kevin was that type of leader. So I'm not saying it was a monolith, but how much truth was is the is the old adage that Jerry is the one, and it said, I like the bigger guard, I want to go with Darren.
Well, well, I think that's what he felt like, you know. But Jerry. This was one of the great things about working with Jerry Sloan all the years that I was fortunate enough to do this. He was great during the draft in that he would watch film of guys, he would come into our group meetings, he would be prepared to offer his, you know, his take on what he
saw and what he thought on film. But he was always Spence the first guy to stand up and say, look, I have an opinion I think this about you know, play or so and so. But you guys, meaning the scouts and the guys who go out and research it all year and see him in person and do all that. You guys work at it much harder than I do. And you guys have studied it much longer than I have,
and you have a better feel for it. So I will give you my opinion about this, but I am not going to, you know, try and override anybody's opinion. You guys have do it, you know for your day
to day business. You know, I'm gonna end up going with what you guys think because and that was one of Jerry's great attributes was that whatever job you had, Spence, whether you were you know, the front office scouting personnel guys, whether you were one of the guys who worked for the public relations group, whether you worked for the marketing group, whether you worked in the in the ticketing office, whatever your job was, that happened to intersect with what Jerry's.
Jerry's responsibilities were as a head coach. He was always the best I've ever been around it, saying, hey, I could override this decision to you know, make some public appearance for the team on a Tuesday afternoon or whatever. It's no, we're not going. But Jerry would say, well, Patty Patty Bally r pr P, Yeah, community relations person for a long time. Patty says, we have this thing tomorrow at three. So we have the thing tomorrow at three.
And you know, some players might go, oh, you know, I don't want to go, or I got something, and he would say, hey, I don't know what to tell you. Patty said, we got to be there at three, so we'd be there at three. And that's why everybody loved working with him because everybody, no matter what your responsibility was, everybody knew that Jerry had your back because he understood the time and the effort that you put into doing
your job to the best of your ability. So you know, and likewise, when it came to the draft, you know, he would have an opinion, but he would always finish it by saying, but you guys know it better than me, so whatever you guys think.
So ultimately final call back than made by Kevin. I would imagine Kevin was the guy yeah.
Yeah, it was Kevin. You know, it would be Kevin. And you know, if there was any kind of you know, pulling tug or you know, uh, you know, nose line at the finish, you know, Jerry and and Kevin would would hash it out and they just you know, and and but I'm telling you, I can't remember a time when Jerry ever said, you know, hey, this is the guy, come on, what are we talking about. He always would say at the end, well, Kevin, you guys, you guys know,
so you guys decide whatever. Because Jerry felt, you know, very comfortable saying that because he also felt like at the same time, so I hope you will reciprocate. When I'm the coach, don't tell me I'm making a decision in the fourth quarter of the game, right. I don't want to hear after the game that you're second guessing me or you know, saying well you should have done
this or that. I mean, that was never said, but it was always understood that Jerry's giving you your space and he's allowing you to do your job, and he's with you in that regard, and he hopes that you reciprocate, you know, with the same kind of the same kind of support, you know, for him and the job he was trying to do.
See, I find this to be really fascinating and I don't know how it works currently over there. Will Hardy was asked during his post season media availability, how involved are you during the draft process, and Will said, I'm very involved. He will be in Chicago for the draft lottery. But I believe I'm a firm believer. I've already I've always been a firm believer in just front offices that I've had a chance to be around, that it is important to have one final voice who does make the call.
I do think the best roster constructors have a team of people around them who they talk to and they take input from. But at the end of the day, you've got to have one guy who's brave enough to say, no, this is my call, even if he doesn't necessarily agree, and that can bring mixed results. And you know the way that Ernie Grunfeld and Pat Ryan worked together, you know, Pat was very much a part of it, but he
allowed Ernie to make the call. And then it was the same thing with Grunfeld and Van Gundy until it wasn't And those two got loose, and this decision had to be made. I've told you before. I can remember being in the war room when Ed Tapscott went rogue and just drafted Frederick Weiss, when most of the nick Scouts wanted run our test.
What is the best way for that to work?
Because I think it's probably fair to say if there's one voice that makes the call over there, my guess is that it's Danny's. It's never a good idea for the ownership group to have the voice. I don't know if Ryan wants to be the guy that actually makes the call. If it is, I think that's horrible news. My guess is that the voice is Danny's. That's my guess. But there's justin Zanik, there's Will Hardy. Any thoughts on the synergies over there?
Now?
No, I'm not there, Spencer, I have no idea. I would assume that that's why Ryan Smith brought in Danny Ainge and who's been in the NBA at all levels
and has made his his life's work. And and you bring a guy like that in who had retired, who was living his retirement life and in in Utah County, and and uh, just trying to have a quiet life, and Ryan Smith went and got him and convinced him to, uh to take up this this project with the Jazz And so I would make it just a guess that you know that he's relying on Danny Aingel's you know, ability and and instincts and and uh knowledge and all that stuff of the league to be the final decision
maker on between A and B. You know, with our groups that I was part of all the time, Uh, it was always the the the the person who sat in that decision making seat, whether it was Scott Laden or whether it was Kevin O'Connor, whether it was Dennis Lindsay. You know, they were the guys who had the control of that. And they were all very collaborative guys. They listened to everybody in the room. They gave everybody a
chance to have their voice heard. You know, they would you know, and you know we even had a couple instances. You know, I can remember where we're Kevin o'conna made decisions on some stuff that he didn't tell anybody about, and then after the fact, you know, we would say, hey, you know a week later, a month later or whatever, Hey, what was that thing about that what was that deal? And he would say, hey, I had to I had
to make a decision. But I didn't want to implicate any of you guys, because if it didn't work out, I felt like, that's not fair to you. I'm the guy in the hot seat, so I deserve to get all the blame, you know, or all have all the slings and arrows you know, aimed at me if if it didn't work out. So I didn't want to tell you guys that we were going to do that because I didn't want you to be part of that process, because that's that's my job to have to deal with that.
And so you know, and again, those are the kind of guys you want to work with, because those of the guys who who have your back and and respect what you bring to the process, and how hard it is to make those kinds of decisions.
All right, before I set you loose, Nobody is giving the next a chance. Nobody believes the next have a chance to be the Celtics four times and seven tries.
Neither do I. Neither do I.
All Right, So New York goes out and they make the move for og and on Obi. They sacrifice their draft capital for mckill Bridges, two big wing defenders that, in theory, can at least provide some pushback for Tatum and Brown. Where I think this is just untenable for New York is Drew Holliday, Derek White on on Jalen because look at Tom Thibodeau has forgotten more about basketball
than I ever know. But when I watch the Knicks offensively, there are so many possessions where it's one four flatter isolation and Jalen has to do it all, and he's so good at times he's able to pull it off. But four times and seven tries again and too, I think the best team in basketball is round two starts tonight. Do the Knicks have a Mike Tyson uppercut chance four times and seven trys?
Yeah, Well you always have a chance, So you know, look that everybody, everybody's starting with a clean slate. You don't know somebody's gonna have a buddy healed night and go off for you know, thirty three points off the bench, or somebody's gonna Jason Tatum is gonna twist his ankle in Game two and he's gonna miss several games. Yeah,
I mean, you have to play it out. I think the knicks, you know, made the right moves and getting guys like you just mentioned, and and then you'll be in bridges because if you have a chance to get those kind of guys and you have a chance to be competitive with whoever the other teams are, then then you have to take that that opportunity. That's what you're in the business for. You're in the business to compete. You're in there to try and give it your best shot.
Maybe it's not good enough, but you take it and and you go you go to to the jump ball and you see what we got tonight. And then if it doesn't work tonight, then we make some adjustments and we go to the next game and so forth. But that's what it's all about, man. And so you know, I think they have a chance. I don't know what that will look like, you know, but again, you're gonna have to have the best version of the guys you have, you know, for a vast majority of each game in
order to have a chance. But that's you know, as they say, Spence, that's why they play the games.
Yes, sir, great to see you.
Are you in town for the foreseeable future, or you on some anxiety.
Look, I'm gonna I'm gonna be on pins and needles a week from today to see what happens with the with the draft lottery. I'm gonna be I'm gonna be sitting in my lucky seat and have all my fingers and toes crossed and do whatever and and uh, and we'll see how that all plays out.
All right, my friend, Well, great to see you as always. We'll see next week we get man, all right, The Great Richard Smith