He's deprived 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, we'll get back to the breaking news regarding the Utah football program that Zach will Let's see Zacharias from a year ago.
He now goes by Zach Williams.
He has entered the NCAA transfer portal. A lot of people assume that Zach would be wide receiver one for the Utes, a positional group that is now badly in need of additions prior to the transfer portal closing coming up on Friday. On Friday. But we'll get back to that coming up in a bit. Richard Smith, though, is now live in studio for the next hour. Smitty, Happy Tuesday, sir, How are you Spence?
Thank you Happy Tuesday to Did you mention earlier anything about me being in the portal.
Because I'm always in the portal? Are you being tampered with?
I don't know if that's if that's been let out or not, you know, but I you know, I I I can't go on with what I'm doing now and and and accept the uh, the situation I've got. I gotta i gotta go in and I've got to find out something else that's gonna gonna work for me. I need more money, I need more something.
You know. Well, we wish you the best of luck.
Well, thanks a lot, thank you. It's it's a tough road to ho. I know, it's it's difficult.
This is a weird time in college athletics, isn't it.
This is Spence. I couldn't tell you. I mean, it's it's kind of for me in my mind. It's it falls in a little bit similar category as the demise of the the PAC twelve, which is five years ago. You would someone would say that to you, you'd go, what are you talking about?
Pact twelve? Is it going?
What? I mean, it's a foundation of college sports, you know. And and and one guy got a little greedy and something something, and a few other people misread the landscape, and all of a sudden the thing falls apart, and here we are in and now in college athletics in general, with this uh. But the n I L stuff which I which I support to to a certain degree, but the but the whole transfer portal, that's the that's the
nugget that I'm still having trouble grappling with. I just don't understand why guys are allowed to just you know, come and go at a whim, you know, even during the middle of a season whatever, and and that there's no no commitments that are made, that that that you're held to or whatever. It's just a free for all.
That that that really, you know, it goes goes to the the the Jerry Seinfelt line about you know, not rooting for your team or your guys are just rooting for a bunch of laundry, you know, and whoever happens to be in the Union. I just saw that the the kid who was playing guard at Utah this past year, Mike Charmant. Yeah, I can never say his last name, and that's my that's my bad.
But he he.
Now is going to go to South Carolina, So now
this is his fourth school in four years. Yep, Like you know, I don't even know what that what is that that's that's that is a perfect example of what is going on, Like how crazy is because you're not talking about Kevin Durant or you're talking about Lebron James, You're talking about some Mike trap, you know, just like you know some journeyman guy who I guess literally wants to live by the moniker journeyman guy by going to a different school every year.
Yeah, and you know, while we're in the space, let's stay in it for a moment. And I hate you know, like, look, the bottom line is things change, things progress, life moves on, and so I try not to exist in the space of what it used to be like because I know that's an exercise in futility.
But I do think for the community.
One of the things that was always endearing about some of the youth football teams and basketball teams of the past was like Andre was here for a few years, but it was here for a few years. Doliak was here for a few years, man Horn. All those guys stuck around. Someone was stuck around for four years. And when they stick around, you get to know them. And so when the preseason rolls around, like, oh, I'm gonna go see Keith tonight, le we go Seeandre.
You know, oh, Britain's a senior. Can't wait to see what he does.
And now you are cheering for almost a brand new team every single year, and I just wonder how that lands with fans.
Yeah, and it's it's it's really interesting because you look at the the attendance at games, and the attendance and a lot of college basketball games isn't great, you know. And that's why you've seen some of them that have either when they've changed arenas or they've remodeled the places they play, they actually start shrinking the seating capacities down because they'd rather have a full house of six thousand than a half empty house of twelve thousand, you know whatever.
And so it's because I think a I think there's just a lot of stuff going on now and in terms of entertainment and accessibility for people on the internet and and you know, through through different streaming services and all that kind of stuff. And I think also there's some element that you know, you're not as connected to your team just because you don't know who these guys are.
You know, you literally need a program when you walk in the door to figure out, you know, who your starting point guard is tonight and and that kind of stuff.
And it just doesn't you know, unless you're doing something you know, like BYU basketball has been able to do the last year plus with Kevin Young and really you know, stoke the fires with some big name recruits and getting guys like that, And it's hard to get any traction and to get going unless you can put something together where you where you do like Rick Patino, Saint John's and and re energize that base and all of a sudden, you guy's in and boom the twenty one and two
and everybody's going okay, all right, you know, And unless you do something like that, it's really hard, I think, to get any traction with your fan base.
So and from a coaching standpoint, I mean, you know, in the pros, you're gonna lose players via free agency, you're gonna lose players via trade, or you.
Draft some guys. It didn't work out, But.
It's impossible to build a team year over year when you literally have nobody coming back, like Scott Drewe has zero players balor lost everybody. But I did want to kick the tires now that we kind of have a feel for the bulk of Alex's staff.
Alex Jensen.
The MAVs lose to the grizz last Friday, and so Alex now has his full time and energy allocated to his job as the utah Ns basketball coach.
So coach Chillius, who we've.
Talked about, Eric Daniels, Donnie's kid is on the staff, Martin Schiller, who you know you worked with, and then Rico Silvester was named director of ops as well. So I don't know how many other additions Alex is gonna make. He's on record saying he doesn't want to have one of these crazy eight coaches on the front row, eight coaches on the second row, four on the third or whatever it is, seven.
Roster spots available.
We just don't know much about the roster right now, so it's hard to analyze the team. But from a staff standpoint, you know a lot of these guys. What do you think of the way Alex is handling it?
Well, what he's been able to do Spencer's set up at least his staff and from the recruiting, UH part of it UH being able to get guys who are well versed in each of the different areas. And by that, I mean you're talking about high school recruiting. So you're talking about Eric Daniels, who's on the staff, who's been been on the staff of a couple of other in
state schools, the Weaver State, Utah State, Utah Valley. He's all he's he's got the pulse of the in state kids, the AAU programs, the high school teams UH in the States, so he's got that covered. You've got Raphael Chilius, who's a big time recruiter nationwide, so he has all the contacts on the on the grassroots level through the AAU, through the E Y b L, the Nike Adidas programs around the country, so he knows all of those guys,
so he can tap into his resources there. And then you've got Martin Schiller who's on the staff, who's who's a from Germany. As you know, Spence several years coaching the Jazz g League team here in the Salt Lake, but otherwise most of his coaching career has been over in Europe, and so he knows the landscape of the
European youth academies, which are very strong. That's where Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic I, Vaka Zubats all those guys went through different youth academies over in Europe and Martin has the pulse on the guys who were over there who might have an interest in coming and playing at the NCAA level when they got out of that youth academy program, which typically is for kids basically high school age fourteen to eighteen year olds. So they've got all of those
layers covered from the recruiting and outsource outreach basis. So now it's a matter of those guys being able to tap into those areas and see what they can come up with in terms of formulating a team for the youths.
So we'll save our second segment to do playoffs the games that have been played and will previous some of the games that are going on tonight in this week. But for our jazz fan listeners out there this time of year, third straight spring where no playoff basketball is in Salt Lake, which is always a bummer because it's one of my favorite things to have the playoffs here. It's fun, I mean, if nothing else, is just really fun and that building is great when the playoffs are here.
And it's been a while since the playoffs have been in Utah. Hopefully the drought isn't taking too long. But when the playoffs aren't your reality? What are the meetings? What are the boxes that need to be checked? What did I make you laugh? Did I tell Joe.
No, no, no, no, you're saying that I'm smiling because I'm reflecting just for myself. This weekend, I was in my house. I was in the front of fact, I was finishing up the Tim McMahon book, very nice, and it was a sunny out. It was bright, and and I look at the clock and it's like seven thirty in the evening, early evening, and I go think to myself, well, it's still light out at seven thirty. Wow, it's you know, I don't know why, it seems like it's lighter, you know,
later in April whatever. And I was thinking about that for whatever reason. And then it dawned on me that this time of year. I've been so used to in my life never being outside or seeing the sun during April or in May, because I was always either in a film room or a draft meeting or a playoff you know meeting, or on the road traveling and you with the team or whatever. So I never got to be able to sit in my front room and read a book and go, oh, it's still it's light out early evening.
Well that's interesting.
Yeah, well that's I mean, you were a part of an organization that more often than not was involved in spring basketball. And I've always loved the spring because I love spring basketball, and some of my fondest memories are being at the Delta Center or the Garden or whatever for playoff basketball comes spring and I miss it.
Not gonna lie.
I hope it comes back at some point and not in five or six years, and part of me is afraid that it's gonna be that long. But when you're not in the playoffs, when you're not involved in the tournament, what are the points of emphasis? What's going on behind closed doors with the Jazz right now?
Yeah, So the Jazz right now, they're they're organizing all their ducks in terms of starting to look at who they may want to try and bring in for workouts during the workout portion of the draft process, which which typically begins right around or right after the the NBA Draft Combine, which will be in the middle of May. Sometimes you have a few workouts before that just to get a feel for your staff about how you're going
to organize those kind of things. This year, I think it'll be particularly busy for them because the Jazz have four draft picks, two in the first round, two in the second round, and they are spread all over the draft. They could potentially have the first pick if that comes up, if the lottery gods are with them on May twelfth, and it goes all the way to the fifty to
fifth pick in the second round. So they're all over the draft board as far as options they have at this moment, and so unless they make some trade, some movements, which could always happen, they're starting to cover all of those areas. They're watching film, they're getting there all that stuff organized draft books together with all the information on all the guys who have entered their name into the
into the draft process. Now that can change, and that's always an evolving process because guys will put their name in the draft and then they'll they'll pull it out if they don't get certain kinds of response in terms of where they might go in the draft and go back to college. And that's also a process, and there's deadlines for that to come up toward the end of May. And then you have the international guys who who it
can withdraw from the draft. Ten days before the draft, so they can go in until whatever the date is this year, June tenth or June twelfth, and then they can pull out. So but you have to have all that homework done in front of you, and you're not playing catch up at the last minute. And for the jazz issue is not such a big deal. You know, everybody looking at that potential, that lottery pick and hoping
that they get one of the top picks. But they've got a lot of picks this year, and a lot of stuff that they've got to cover and and and make sure that they they have all their te's crossing, their eyes dotted and so so this is an important part right now, before you get into the draft combine, before you get into the euro camp, which will take place a week or so after that over in Europe and Treviso, Italy, get into all the workout stuff that you're going to have to plan and and and execute
during from mid.
May to mid June. So all those kind of things are in front of you.
So you're trying to get a lot of your scouting, film work organization, all that stuff in place now so that you can when you get to those points in time of the process, you can just start checking all those boxes and make sure you got all your bases covered.
Let's talk about what players go through when they go through the pre draft process, because we were talking a little college hoops earlier and Richie Saunders has not decided yet whether or not he's coming back to Brigham Young. Now the reports are BYU badly wants him back and they're willing to pay him seven figures to put him alongside aj De Bonsa as well as you know, some of the other players they have coming in. It's a
good recruiting class, one of the top ten. But Richie's twenty three years old, and so you know at this point, if he has an opportunity to play NBA basketball, it might behoove him to start the process now because you want to get to that second contract. I don't know what kind of pro Richie is. He had a really good year last year. But what for our listeners, for the context, what's Richie going through right now as he goes through this process.
What does this look and feel like for BYU fans out there.
Yeah, so what he's probably going through right now is if he hasn't already what he should be doing is putting his name. And this is my opinion. Now I don't I don't know anything about Richie or or what he and his family are thinking about the process.
But I've always said.
This all along, whenever the NBA started this, uh, this process where you had a date where you could pull out. I don't know why every single college player doesn't put their name in the draft. I mean, you don't lose anything in the press. Even if you're you know, the fourth guy off the bench for a middling team Weaver State or Utah or whoever it is, you know you should put your name in the draft because maybe there's a team that wants to take a look at you.
So if you put your name in, then Spence, you could get invited to workouts and a lot of teams need guys, you know, you know what we call filler guys to do workouts when they're bringing in, like say, a couple of big boys, and all of a sudden they need another guy for the workout two days from now, and because a guy dropped out, so they call a kid from Weber, they call a kid from Utah Valley or whoever it is, who might whose eligibility might be uple or who might have put their name in and
you bring them in for workouts. So maybe they do something and they catch an eye of somebody. But at the very least you get some feedback from from the NBA personnel people who can tell you, hey, we like this about your game. We think this is a shortcoming, we think this is something you need to work on. And so if you're a Richie Saunders, I would think that if I was advising him, I would say, you know, you should be putting your name in. You should go
through that process. You could probably get you know a number of workouts, you know, four, five, six, eight workouts with the NBA teams, get feedback from them, hey, this is what we like about your game, this is what we think you need to improve on, this is what you need to do, and also get feedback from them about what they think his situation is relative to his age and and and what his what his role would
be uh in an NBA program. Then he can look at all that information and he can make a decision the day before you have to make the college decision about whether you're coming back or not, and he can look at that and go, well, I'm encouraged by what the NBA teams are telling me, and I think I want to go for this, or the NBA teams are telling me, I need to work on A, B and
C and this is really important to me. And if I can, if I can figure out how to improve those areas that they're telling me about, then maybe that improves my draft stock for next year and I can come back to b YU and and in the past, Spence, you know this was, you know, five years ago, eight years ago, you're if you're a Richie Saunders, You're making a decision about do I want to try and get to the NBA where I can make some money whatever that's going to be, even if I'm a fringe guy
or something like that, because all I got going on in college is my scholarship and my room and board or whatever. Now it's a different story. You know, do I get drafted in the NBA. Am I going to be a late second round fringe guy who might make
the team, might not? Or do I go take what they're telling me as feedback, go back to college for another year, get my nil money, which is very nice at the moment, and I can do that working on the stuff they're telling me about with my coaching staff at college and then reposition myself for a year from now. So those are the things that he'll be going through and processing with his family to see what makes sense for him.
Richie is not on any of the mock drafts that I've seen, including second round, second round mock drafts.
And I know mock drafts are somewhere somewhat silly.
Whoever's doing it, they're missing it. So do you think, oh, yeah, no, no, no, I love I love I love him. He's I'm not saying he's gonna be a star or anything, but he's an NBA guy. If Sam Merrill is an NBA guy, okay, and Sam Merrill is playing a rotational piece on one of the best teams in the NBA. He's had to work at it, you know, he's been cut from several teams.
He's been in and out, in and out, but he's worked at it and he's put himself in a very good position right with a with a winning team and has a role with that team. Richie Saunders to me is uh is an active guy. He's a fearless guy. He works hard. One of the things I noticed especially in the in the NCAA tournament that I hadn't I hadn't seen. I've seen some of but it didn't stand out to me as much during his regular season games
until until the tournament. But he can get in the lane, and he can finish a La Carlos Boozer with either hand in traffic and and so efficiently. And he's a very and he doesn't mind getting hit and taking a lick. And then he's a very good free throw shooter, and and he's also an active defender. So I I really
like him. The guys who do the mock drafts, whoever they are, I mean, they're gonna you know, those are just guys sitting in their basement, you know, making stuff up Spencer, you know, while watching a cable television every night.
But that, But he's a.
Guy who I think if he gets in the draft, if he decides to do something like that, somebody's gonna get a surprise if they if they look at him, if they if they spending the time on him. Now I would say this, the Jazz guys, you don't have to worry about them because they know, you know, whether it's you know, starting right at the top Ryan Smith who's at most of the b YU games, Danny Ainge who is at most of the b YU games.
So they know him, so they've.
Already got a beat on whether they like him or not, and they see him in a certain role or not, you know.
But uh, but.
For someone like him, and I'm not telling him what to do obviously, you know, but he's he's someone who in his situation you bring up a good point.
NBA teams for whatever reason.
Which is always I think is always a little off base, and they don't really pay attention in that regard. But a lot of teams will nick a guy because of his age and they'll say, well, wait a minute, we got a kid who's nineteen, or we got a kid who's twenty three, rich years old.
Group, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Right, right, So so you look at that and they go, yeah, I don't know, the guy twenty three is probably who he is. But you know what, I would be in the room raising my hand going yeah, he is who he is, and I like who he is, and i'd put him. I'm not saying the necessarily take him in the first round or anything, but I would want a kid like him in my group because of the way he approaches the game and the way he plays on
both ends of the floor. Guys like that are guys that are valuable rotation guys for winning NBA programs.
In an interesting dynamicsmitty, So for our listeners, second round picks or not, the salaries are not governed by the rookie scale. A first round picks, there's a scale splotted right, so there's really no negotiation. I mean there's a little bit of flexibility, but not much so in the second round. Like, for instance, Kyle Philipowski got a nice guaranteed deal where he's making three mil YEP and that's more than even
Isaiah Collier. But if we look at former youth Pelee Larson as an example, he signed a three year deal with Miami starting at the rookie minimum of one point one five seven. And if Richie's getting the seven figure offer from BYU, you balance that out right to your point five years ago, eight years ago. It's like, wait, I can go make one point one mil, I'm leaving.
But if you can make that in college, if Richie's feedback is that your late second round are undrafted, the money that be what he's offering might be enough to get him back on campuses while to think about.
Yeah, and also what happens spensing that process is if you find and again I'm just talking to use it Richie as as a hypothetical example, but guys like him over the years, if they find themselves in that kind of a position, they may have a team who says to him, hey, look, you know, you stay in the draft. If you're still there at forty two, whatever the number is,
we will take you at that number. So they kind of they talk to their agent and they say, hey, you know, we'll guarantee that he doesn't go undrafted because if he gets to forty two, then we'll take him because we like him that much. So the kid then has an idea, Okay, well I may I may not be drafted before then, but these guys have told me they'll take me at a certain spot. And so now you have that to put into the equation of what makes sense for you and discussion with your family about
what what you should do going forward. That that can sometimes play into. So sometimes you'll see a guy in a draft spence just like this. You'll say, you know, a guy is entered the draft, you go by that guy's not in any mock drafts. What's that guy doing staying in the draft or whatever. More often than not, it's because he's talked to somebody who said, hey, you stay in. If you're still there, we're gonna take you.
Who did that happen to last year? Oh, a young kid from USC named Bronnie James, who's you know, nobody was going to draft. And I'm sure you know it's my opinion that you know, the Lakers told them, hey, you're going to draft, nobody will draft you. When we get to fifty five, we'll take you and we'll put you on the G League team and let you develop and we go from there.
So you know, all those.
Kinds of things happen, machinations behind the scene that they're always interesting to flesh out after they occur, to find out what exactly was going on.
One more thing here, because we're just using the local example that are actually real. So Jegor Demon is the only other local player who has declared for the draft that actually is making appearances on mock drafts. I know you don't like them, but you know it's what we have at our disposal. Unless you want to give us a draft board of an actual NBA team and we can use that. But the latest Gavoni draft from ESPN
dot com as Jaeger are going twelve to Chicago. So late lottery is that, generally speaking the area where you expect to hear his name called.
Yeah, I think I think a lot of people like Diego.
A lot of people have known him, uh from when he was playing with the youth team in Real Madrid, which is the same program Luka Doncic came through. He will teams like him for what they think he can become in time. He didn't. He had an uneven season at BYU. I liked some of the stuff he did. I always thought he played and most of the time in second gear. I always wanted to see him burst out and really like take over games, which I thought he could do at the collegiate level with his ball
handling and his court sense and his vision. He had a nice season, not a great season, But he'll stay in the draft because this was always his plan and somebody's gonna take him in that eight to fifteen area on the basis of well, like the Jazz did you know ten years ago whenever it was with Dante exem big point guard, a guy who has a skill level. You hope that he can mature into being something you know that that will help your team down the road.
And so I don't expect him to fall much back past the mid teams before somebody grabs him.
All right, we'll catch a break. We'll do some playoffs coming up. But Smitde, I'm gonna put you on the spot. Well, I do this read. I want you to think of a jazz trivia question. Oh okay, you got about thirty seconds, so then we're gonna get your question. But SMITI stops bot today courtesy of our friends at IFA Country Stores. IFA Country Stores they have everything you need to care
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in studio for another big segment. John Kimball, the president of RAAL Salt Lake, will roll through coming up just after four point thirty. I'm told John is breaking some news on our radio program today.
So that's pretty exciting.
We'll get back to the breaking news from earlier. Unfortunate news for Utah football that Zacharias Williams known as Zach Williams this year, has entered the NCAA transfer portal. Most people expected Zach Williams to be wide receiver one for the Utes, and it looks like he's going to find a different place to play. As Porter pointed out earlier, there's still the opportunity of him coming back to Utah like Mackay Bernard did a year ago. So keep you
up to date there, all right, Smitty. You know I say this all the time. It's not like some genius basketball take or anything, but star players in the NBA go on the road on the in the playoffs and they win. You know, they lead their teams to big wins on the road in the postseason. That's what stars do. And last night we had two examples of that. We had one example of a young player that for maybe people that haven't watched the Pistons this year went wow, Okay,
Kate gunning to him is pretty good. He drops thirty three of the garden at twelve boards and love Tom Thibodeau, respect him. He knows more about ball than I ever will. But they didn't blitz him until the fourth. And look, Ognarobi's a great wing defender, so as Josh Hart, so is mckel bridges.
I get it.
You know, guard your man, as Jerry used to say, guard your bleeping man.
But what did you make.
Of watching Kay do that at MSG last night? And what do you make of this p next series that suddenly is very interesting?
Yeah, the Pistons are really playing well, playing well at the right time. They've really matured this year. You know,
last year, Spence, they won all of fourteen games. They had the worst record in the NBA by five games, but they had the Troy Weaver, a former colleague of mine at the Jazz for several years, was the general manager, the architect of the Detroit Pistons rebuild the last five years, right, and then he was let go last summer just before you could see the so called fruits of his labor. He laid the foundation with a lot of the guys,
including drafting Kate Cunningham. They got a bad break last year, which the Jazz are hoping doesn't repeat itself this year in the draft lottery, where Detroit had really earned and I say earned because they were just playing. They just weren't any good last year, had a lot of young guys.
Cunningham was out a lot of last year with injury, and they ended up with the worst record, and they should have had the first pick in the draft, but because the way the lottery went, they ended up with the fifth pick, and that could have set them back some.
But they they retooled. The owner decided to change things up in the front office, brought in Trajan Langdon, who brought in Dennis Lindsay and those two guys are heading up basketball operations along with George David, who's who's been a mainstay with the Pistons for a long time in the front office. And those guys have gotten added some guys the last summer, most noticeably Tobias Harris they brought in. They brought him Malik Beasley and and those guys have
really helped that corps gel. They had a winning record this year. They even went through the play and didn't even have to get in the play and got in as as the sixth seed. And uh, and now they're showing that they're not afraid. And again they're playing with house money really spends. And there's a difference in that from a mentality, uh, and approach the standpoint, Detroit a
year ago had the worst wreck in the league. Right now they're sitting here in the first round series, having split two games at Massive Square Garden, a very difficult place to play in the playoffs, and now they're going home to play two games at home in downtown Detroit at Little Caesars Arena, where it's it's gonna be a madhouse, I guarantee you. But they're excited because they don't really
have anything to lose. They had a winning record, they made the playoffs, they lose to the Knicks in the first round, everybody around the league goes, yeah, well okay, and you know they're they're they're starting to climb back. So so that's a different mindset than something like the Knicks, who come into this series with like a big burden on their shoulder, like, hey, you guys better not lose to the Detroit Pistons in the first round.
They were the worst teams.
Yeah, and so there's gonna be there's gonna be some some heck to pay if if you if you stumble in that in that regard, you know. And so they're playing the Knicks are playing with a little bit of a you know, a burden on their backs. The first game could have gone either way. The second game could have gone either way, but the Knicks had that big run in the fourth quarter Game one that that kind
of solidified the game for them. But it should be an interesting series, especially now that there's two games in Detroit. Those fans will be there, you know, even if they split those games. Now you're two to two, you know, with at least two more to come. So I think it's going to be a lengthy and a fun series to watch because it's it's a very physical series. Those teams are pushing each other around a lot.
Last night they were.
I wonder what you made of coach Tibodeau's comments after the game about the free throw discrepancy last night of the Next sixteen of nineteen and Detroit twenty eight of thirty four. I'm not one that usually believes that the rest are to blame for the outcome. But I understood what he was saying. I mean, there were some there were some pretty rough calls made last night. Kay got to the line twelve times, although he did say, well, if kid's gonna get to the line, then Jalen show.
Jalen got to the line eleven times, exactly right. But you know, I wonder what because Tom usually doesn't do that. No, wonder what you made of that?
Yeah, you know, that's that's that that's a coach in the heat of the moment. And and you know, speaking to the media, whose whose mindset is all you know, blown up about you know, whatever he feels, uh, went against him and his group at that moment. When you looked at the numbers, you go, dude, the other guy shot twelve free throws, your guy shot eleven.
What do you want?
And then then he I'm sure he would start, you know, uh, you know, backtracking and and and and referring to other things. We always had those things in our mind over the years with the with the Jazz, when I was with them, uh, with with the coach Sloan especially, we would talk about,
you know, free throw disparities. We would talk about a keem Olajuan, you know, traveling ten times on the low post or whatever, you know, and when he didn't, but we always thought he did, you know, just because you know, we were biased and in the lens we were looking at it through. But Jerry was always great because we would say, hey, they shot twice as many free throws.
We should send in a thing to the league, and you know, this is unbelievable, you know, and these were in our closed door you know, behind closed door meetings, and Jerry would always go, you know what, I don't want to get into it. I don't want to deal with that because I don't want the league on our case. And I also don't want us to have the reputations being whiners.
You know.
We just go out and play and we do the best we can. Well, let's let's send in a tape that shows this and this, you know, all the things they missed. And Jerry woul always say, now, don't send in any tape. I don't want the referees, you know, to hear about it. And then we get the next game and the referees are giving me the look like, oh, always sending the tape on us. I watched this, you know, and that was always his take on it, and he
was right. He goes, nobody cares. No, nobody cares except you, you know, whether you got you know, you were you know, got the short end of the stick or whatever. You just got to come. And I thought Jalen Brunson was great last night. Well he was asked about it because he's always been that kind of a stand up guy, just saying, hey, we just got to play better, you know. And again it was a tie game with less than a minute ago. Detroit has the ball. Dennis Shrewder puts
up a three. He puts up the three as it's leaving his hands. If you're a Nick fan, you're going, oh, good, Dennis Shrewter is taking a three.
Yeah, and he nails it.
And so that that changes the whole tone of the last fifty seconds of the game, and the Pistons were able to hold on. They get a lot of credit for me for playing having the lead they had, letting it get away. The Knicks tie it up late in the game and massive Square Garden the fans going crazy, and the young Pistons group is able to make a couple of plays down the stretch and actually pull the
game out. That was a big deal for them, just in their mindset, their mentality that you know, when those things happened to us, we have a way of being able to deal with it and not let the emotion of the moment get to us. So that I thought that was that was pretty interesting. I think it's going to make for an interesting series there.
Let's move over to the West.
Now, we'll get to the one game that was played last night previous a couple of games tonight. And you know, I've been talking about this on the show, not just today, Smittye, but maybe for about six weeks, where whenever Kawhi is healthy for a long stretch, you're just like, oh yeah, oh yeah, that's right, that's who he is. And Lebron probably for maybe fourteen fifteen years, was the best player in the league, and then the conversation would always be like,
all right, who's second. I think Durant was probably the guy for a while simply with his individual offensive brilliance. But when Kawhi was healthy, I think a lot of people thought Kawhi was probably the second best player in the league and maybe even approaching the potential of being the best player in the league. He has had some unbelievable playoff performances and playoff runs. And the sad reality is, no matter what happens with Kawhi the rest of his career,
I'll always wonder what could have been. He seemed like the perfect dere a parent to Tim Duncan and San Antonio. He just seemed like a spur right Popovich found like the next great player.
Reports are whether it was.
His father or people around him, or he just wanted to live in la because that's where he's from.
I don't know.
Gear in Toronto wins the championship and I just it's pretty rare with I mean, you've seen more basketball than I I have, but it's pretty rare for me to sit and watch a game and go, this is very special. And what he did last night thirty nine points on nineteen shots, that's a reminder to a lot of people that's exactly what this dude is. What do you make of what we saw last night? And what do you think of the clips nugget series?
And that was well, that was a vintage performance by him, you know, one of his better performances of his career. That's not you know, let's not get overboard on it either, Spence.
You know that's not like a night in night out.
I mean, he doesn't go fifteen for nineteen every night, and you know all that. When he's healthy, he's a very effective player. He was very good last night. He never gets rushed. He always gets to his spot where he wants to go. With his length, the size of his hands, because his hands are unbelievably large, he can
get his shot over people whenever he wants. He gets to his spots like he did last night, and he had a flow going and you can see it as it unfolded in the game, and that he was comfortable, you know, obviously, just as you mentioned. The thing about him is that there could have been a lot more right in the heart of his so called prime between
age twenty nine and thirty three. He you know, he's been hurt most of the time, and he's had the injury thing where for some time he was away from the team and he had his own guys doing his health rehabilitation stuff and they weren't sure what was going on, and they thought he was being a male content and you know, whatever, whatever. But you can see what a team wanted to have and what they saw, you know, could be when he's healthy and he's able to play
because he plays both ends. Spence, he is a tough wing defender, and with his length and also his activity level and his strength, he's a strong guy. You know, he can guard just about anybody you want him to guard in clutch situations. And he's a guy who doesn't get sped up. He's got that calmness about his game. And now he's with Harden. The Clips have had had a great run at the end of the season. They
went eighteen and three last twenty one games. You know, he was playing not all of that, but some of that to get in the rhythm, you know, and just
think of it. They you know, they could have had Paul George, but they coughed up that opportunity, you know, when when Paul George wanted more money and they didn't want to do it, And which was surprising because Steve Balmer, the owner of the of the Clippers and one of the ten richest guys in the world, surprised he didn't just say, yeah, okay, whatever, we gotta we gotta run this thing to the to the end and see what happens, and they let Paul George get away to Philadelphia, and
so they're down a man in that regard in terms of their long range planning. But but Kawhi Leonard showed you last night how he can affect the game when he's healthy and when he's in a groove and he's not worried about his knee and he's not worried about you know, he doesn't have to deal with the injury
stuff and he's just playing his game, you know. But but also helps Spence because he gets some of the some of that that that burden is lifted off him because he's got another guy with him, James Harden, who
can go get shots and can make shots at any time. Also, so you don't have that burden, you know, like it felt Doncicic was having in Dallas before before Kyrie Irving got there, where you're doing all the heavy lifting, you know, or Lebron James, you know, when when Anthony Davis would be out and he was doing all the heavy lifting.
Those guys.
That's an interesting series because Denver is trying to keep their group together, you know, with the dismissal of Michael Malone before the end of the season, and you know, if they fall out in the first round looking for a new coach and there could be some other changes coming, you know, if they feel like, oh, we we we made that move to give our team a jolt, and it didn't work because they lost in the first round.
And so sometimes owners overreact to that kind of stuff without taking you know, stepping back and looking at the whole picture of what you got in front of you. And so that's gonna be interesting to see how that plays out. Great series to watch though.
We'll end with a couple of games tonight, and before we get to t wo's Lakers Game one, OKC Memphis Shay was just fine and they beat him by half a hundred.
Have we overthought the West?
And should we just just is it just time to say that Oklahoma City is clearly the best team out here?
Well?
I think they were, certainly, you know, they ran away with what the West is a tough group of teams. A lot of teams could win in the West. And then you look at the season standings and you go, okay, see finished like fourteen games ahead of everybody else, you know, not like two or three or four games. Spence they were like lightning years ahead of everybody else in the win.
Lost count, and their net was almost thirteen. It's his story, Yes, it's you know. The way they're playing is terrific. They've got a good mix of guys. Mark Dago and his staff have done a terrific job of getting them to buy into the defensive end, and they have to play in that regard. Obviously, a lot of it goes through U. S.
G A.
And when he's healthy and he's able to, you know, run the floor, run the show like he has been. You know, they they are tough to deal with, and I don't think there's gonna be another fifty point game. In fact, I think the Grizzlies can make some kind of a of a series out of it. I don't know, you know, if they win a game, I think they you know, they certainly can they They they play well at home. They play a little bit differently at home
as well. And in the playoffs when the when the ball usually slows down a little bit, usually the home crowds get into it and pick up the home team. But I think, uh, I think okac is you know, they you have to consider them the favorites to come out of the West because of the way they played all year and the fact that they've got all their guys right now, they're you know, they're ready to roll.
Wonder U Penny for the thoughts of Michael Malone and Taylor Jenkins.
Yeah, well, you know, those guys are obviously they're they're you know, and Michael Malone's case, he's a championship level coach. He's done it, he's been through it. Taylor Jenkins is did a terrific job with the group he had, especially having to go through all of the John Morant stuff, because that that can really tax you and and can have an emotional toll on your group. And he was able to navigate all, you know, through all that stuff
the last couple of years. And they are a very a very solid team, probably not as deep as you want to be, but they're, you know, they're they're a very good team. Those guys being dismissed, I don't know what to say about, you know, the ownership groups who who pull the plug on teams that are winning. You know, obviously there's other stuff that's going on that they don't like, but you know, those guys, those guys will be higher.
They'll be they'll be snatched up quickly by other teams realize you know what they what they're all about, and what they bring to a group as as a lead coaches.
Ironically enough, the second best net in the West belonged to Minnesota this year. So we'll end with a thought on tonight's game between Minnesota and the Los Angeles Lakers. The Tea Wolves, of course, were happy to take all of the leftovers from the Utah Jazz after the team was broken down, with Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley, nas reed, excuse me, Nikkeil, Alexander Walker, and even Joe Ingles on the roster. So Minnesota's kind of in a sneaky way.
They just have all these big, strong like wing defenders. I'm not anticipating Jade McDaniel's going eleven of thirteen again, but Julius Randall offensively is a little bit of a ball stopper, but he is kind of a beast on the perimeter and it's a big dude, and they've got good depth. Nikhil Alexander Andrew Walker didn't play much here, but he's played well for them. Dante DiVincenzo, they got in the cat trade, and obviously nas Reed has stepped in. When they go small and Rudy goes to the bench,
what do the Lakers do? How do they get back in this? What do you think happens tonight? Before I set you loose?
Well, the main guys for Lakers, obviously James and and and Doncic have to have to play at at at a UH and A level, if not a plus level.
Uh.
They don't have enough help around them. They've got what I consider half of a a guy in Austin Reeves when you're talking about playoff ability and and ability to affect games. But Minnesota, you know, look they did this last year to Phoenix when they went on the road and won, and they swept the Phoenix Suns in the first round. Now they and then they won that big
game in Denver in game seven last year. Now they go on the road the first game and the road against the Lakers, and they went on the road in l A. L A is not particularly tough place to play because the fans are more there to hang out and be social. They're not you know, rah rah, you know, getting your face type of crowds. So it's not a really difficult place, uh for players to play when you're talking about the NBA crowds.
Uh.
But but the Lakers have to have their guys, you know, really and and then they have to have a guy that always happens in the playoffs. If you have some level of success, spence is, you have to have one of your rotation guys have a game out.
Of his mind, you know.
Of course, Jazz fans remember several years ago with the Clippers when Trey Mann went off, you know, for thirty seven and shot the lights, had the game of his life. The Lakers have to have whether it's a Ruy Hachimura or or one of the guys Vanderbilt or somebody has to come in the rotation and do something that they usually don't do. Have a performance you know that that sticks out like a sore thumb, and they have to
have something like that to help those two main guys. Otherwise, the Timberwolves, as long as they stay healthy and their guys are playing in the realm that they're playing, they are going to be a tough.
Out, smitty, great stuff.
As always, please to announce you'll be with us for our Draft Night covers along with Coach Gordy chases.
So that's gonna be fun. Yeah, Gory will be prepared, he'll be ready to go and we'll be going at it back and forth. It will be a fun, fun.
Time, Yes, sir, great to see you enjoy the golf this week. The Great Richard Smith