Well, he lives, he lives. It's been way too long. I thought he ditched us. I thought he decided that he was done with the media portion of his long and prosperous, well decorated career. But after weeks and weeks and weeks abroad with a little sunshine on the ocean, Richard Smith has triumphantly returned live in studio for the next hour. You look tanned, you look rested, You look twenty five years younger.
Really, where you been, man? Really? Where you been?
First of first of all, I don't know what Porter is doing with this with this intro.
Is that Johnny Cash? Is that old old Johnny Cash?
That was uh, it was you two with Johnny Cash, the Wanderer.
It was.
You.
It's appropriate, it's it's appropriate.
It was a reach.
Yeah, No, I think it was perfect.
Where you been, man, Where you've been? What's going on? Man?
No, I've been out of out of town spends. We had a great, uh, great cruise in the in the Caribbean for a few weeks. I had a terrific time. And it was nice to see sunshine and eighty degrees and and you know, one of the best parts of having a trip like that is, uh is every now and then you're you're sitting near the pool, You're sitting up in the sunshine. You look at your phone and you get on the weather rap and says Salt Lake snowing and twenty three.
Yeah, now you yourself, anyone around here. This is why I'm doing this.
Yeah.
Now. Now the flip side is you get off the ship to go to the airport to come home, and you say, what am I doing?
Why am I Why am I going back to do this?
I don't know, but for me it was because I missed the Spence check Its show on the Drive with Porter Larsen and and my I was I had to get back here because I was getting a little anxious. I was starting to twitch a little bit. And uh, but here I am here, I am back with you. So everything's normal, everything's calm, and and we're back to it.
So you expect me to believe the only reason you left the Caribbean the warm weather so you could come, you know, slepping on.
Air with you.
I have no other reason to do it but to come back and talk to you fair enough. So this is and we can talk about the jazz and the trade deadline and all the other and and and maybe even get in a vote to vote for what the name of the hockey team is supposed to, because I'm so I'm so.
Engrossed in that I can't believe it.
Do you have?
Okay, let's start there.
Porter and I educated the people yesterday, mostly Porter because he loves the genealogy, on the fact that Utah actually does have a very rich history when it comes to Outlaws. Of course, Order's third cousin is Jesse James or Butch Cassidy or who is it again, but Cassidy. There you go, Yeah, no, I do now it's turning into a bit so. Butch Cassidy is literally Porter's third cousin. He has tremendous knowledge
of Outlaws in the past. So we have the Outlaws, we have the Mammoth, and we have my preferred name, which is the name they already have, which is the Utah Hockey Club. I think it's a classy I think it's clean. I don't think it's corny. I don't need an abominable snowman as a mascot. So I like the
current version, but I'm kind of out an island. What do you think well, first of all, I'm wondering any other hockey fan around the country, anybody who's involved in the NHL, would they accept a team that's called the Utah Outlaws relative to what most people's view of the state of Utah is around conservatism and the LDS church and whatever whatever, clean cut people and.
All that kind of stuff.
And then they're sitting there in North Carolina or Florida or wherever, and they're going now they name their team the Outlaws, the Utah oh am, I supposed to believe that the Utah Outlaws, Well.
We have a team named the Jazz, and we don't have any jazz music in the city that there's nowhere you can go to listen to jazz, and so like, yet our basketball team is.
The Jazz, I know, our you know, the one that's the most egregious to me, Spencer never gets mentioned is the Los Angeles Lakers.
Sure, exactly, you know and so but you.
Know, obviously, but having said all that, I I'm with you. I'm in your camp one hundred percent. I said this back back when whenever, and I still I'm still in that camp that if I had a vote, which obviously I don't I would be voting.
For Utah Hockey Club.
I love it that it's it's nice and clean, and I like the logos they've gotten, the color scheme and everything. And I don't know, I've heard you say this before, and I'm and I'm in complete agreement with you for for once in a while, that makes me feel good that the that they seem to me to be overthinking the whole process, you know.
So no, I'm with you.
And if you go to the next two home games for the Utah Hockey Club, starting tonight against Columbus, you can go through the exercise where you can pretend to vote on this situation and simply give your data to qual Tricks. And they're gonna do whatever they want behind the scenes anyway. But they are presenting the facade of a fan vote. It's not a real thing. But we'll see, we'll see. It's been fun to have the hockey team here, said, the kid was in town the other night scoring a
game winning overtime goal. And you know, we're not going to do a lot of hockey, but I do find myself, you know, could she kind of laugh and shake in my head when the Rangers coming to town. Or the Blues coming to town, or Alex Ovechkin is here, Sidney Crosby is here, Like, it is pretty remarkable that they were able to get this thing done with only a few months turn around.
Well, that's that's the miracle. Spence and Ryan Smith and his group at SEG like how they came to an agreement with the NHL from from March, putting in a letter of intent that they wanted to try and purchase an expansion team at some point to the next month in April, with Gary Bettman coming to Ryan Smith saying, hey, can you do you want to get involved, like next Tuesday? What are you talking about? And the Arizona team comes here and bing bang boom. They're in the middle of
a season this year. With all of that, that to me is nothing short of a miracle of just getting it off the ground and getting it going and all the stuff they've had to do, all the people who I know behind the scenes over there at the Delta Center who have scrambled and done the very best they can to get this thing going, and the fans are responding, and the team is competitive and all this kind of stuff.
It's just it really is a.
Marvel that they've gotten it to this point so quickly, and you have to give them a lot of kudos.
For that, no doubt, no doubt.
All Right, since you and I last spoke, several interesting scenarios haven't folded, not just in Jazz LAMB, but in the world of pro basketball.
You know, you were one of the.
First people I thought of when the alert came down on my phone that the Jazz had made a trade. Now players are not involved, but it's an interesting thing to consider. There are six teams smitty in pro basketball that own a tremendous amount of draft capital moving forward over the next five to six to seven drafts. Ok See, Oklahoma City's at the top, San Antonio, It's Utah, It's Brooklyn, and.
I think it's Detroit.
Maybe there's one other team that has So there are six teams total. They control multiple picks throughout the course of the next five to six to seven drafts.
So let's dig into the deal.
Then let's talk about whether or not you think this is going to become commonplace. So Utah sends three picks, three first round picks to Phoenix. All three picks are the least favorable of their picks, Minnesota's pick and Cleveland's pick. So they obviously have done their calculation on the Cavs certainly, and they've said this year that's going to be twenty nine to thirty. Two years from now, they're probably going to be really good. Then four years from now, nobody
really knows. But the least favorable of all three might be in the twenties as well. So they're saying, like, Okay, we're sending three picks to Phoenix that we think are going to be, you know, not necessarily great value in the late twenties, on the off chance that in twenty thirty one, Booker's in his thirties, Durant's probably in a retirement home, Beal's done. Anyway, in the off chance that Phoenix is pivoting and rebuilding in twenty thirty one, we'll
take that chance. So we'll trade you three assets for one that we perceive to be as worth the risk, I guess I'll say, so break this down for us, and do you think this is something we're going to see in pro basketball moving forward with all these teams with so many picks.
Yeah, And you're exactly right, Spence, And the reason you do that the reason you have, you know, this famous phrase of assets accumulation is because you're trying to get as many many chips in the pile if you will, that you can.
And then when.
Something like this comes up, and we've talked about this before on the show, you never know. You can control some things within your purview of how you want to do things, who you want to take in the draft, how you want if you want to move up in the draft and move down, whatever it is, sign a
free agent, and those kind of things. But then there are other things that affect your organization along the way that you have no control of that just come at you, and you have to be ready to be able to react in a way that you feel can benefit your organization. And this is one of those times. So the Jazz accumulated a bunch of draft picks over a bunch of years. You know, when are they going to use them, How are they going to use them? Who are those picks
going to be? You know, some people look kind of go, boy, we got like three draft picks in the first round in a year, you know, five years from now. Where the kid we're gonna pick right now is in seventh grade? Or whatever you know, and it's so it's like that part of it is goofy, but you have those in place in case something like this comes about. So what happens, Phoenix is desperately trying to figure out a way to
get Jimmy Butler from Miami. Big roadblock is because of Bradley Beal, who is the most tradeable ASCID or at least the one that they would like to be able to move, who has no trade clause, which is very unusual in the NBA. Very few players get that in their contracts. But that was something he negotiated when he was in Washington. Why they would do that, who knows, but that was a decision they made. Now Phoenix has it and they have to deal with it. So they're
trying to figure out a way to move Bradley Beal. Well, they have to have some other assets because Phoenix has backed themselves into a corner so deep with their roster construction, they have no draft picks to speak of. They have nowhere to move. This is what they built. They went all in on this group, and this group showed last year they get beaten the first round by Minnesota.
This year they're struggling to just.
Hopefully get out of the playing thing if they can get in the top.
But that's not what they're supposed to do.
They believe they're supposed to be one of the top two, three four teams in the West. It's not working out to this point in time. So they're struggling like, Okay, now what do we do? So they the only thing they can figure out at that moment is can we use an asset way in the future, meaning the twenty thirty one unprotected first round pick, and get multiple assets for that. The Jazz are waiting in the in the weeds. They come up, they raise their hand in the classroom. Yeah,
we have three draft picks. We'll trade you, and Phenix goes okay, three for one. Okay, we'll do that. So the Jazz figure, Okay, we've got all these picks. That's why we have them, so we can roll it into something else. So we think might be more valuable way down the road. Will it be? We have no idea. Is it something we might use two years from now in another move? We might do that, but we've got that's something we feel is a little more valuable than
what we have right now. Phoenix is in a position where they need multiple assets to try and get someone else in their trade scenario with Butler and Beal, and so.
They want to make that move.
So you take advantage of that and you take that pick and you put it to the side, and then you move on if you're the Jazz, and you wait in the wings and you see what happens with those other teams in their potential trade scenarios.
So there are constant rumors surrounding the Jazz, as there are this time of year with a lot of teams. But I referenced, Oh, by the way, the team I forgot with additional draft capitals Houston. Then it's Charlotte, So there are sixteen. Charlotte has eight, first, Houston has nine.
The Jazz still have eleven even after the trade. Then you're looking at Brooklyn that has fifteen, You're looking at San Antonio that has twelve, and Oklahoma City has ten thirteen incoming picks, ten that are trade and they're awesome. So that's that's difficult. Sam Presty's done a hell of a job. But every time somebody talks about this trade deadline, they talk about John Collins potentially to Sacramento.
They talk about Colin Sexton.
You know, the Lakers are the worst because every player that's available that might fit in say, like, hey, the Lakers in on Colin Sexton. I don't know, no idea. And then obviously Jordan Clarkson's another name. What are the conversations behind closed doors Jazz front office right now? Wigne what to do with some of these pieces with twenty seven million in cap space and a bunch of draft capital too, Like, what do you think they're discussing prior to February sixth.
Well, first of all, they've gone in this season right with the idea that they're going to try and develop all these young players.
And whether you.
Believe they're doing that or not, whether they're making progress or not, you know, everybody has an opinion about that. The bottom line is they're not winning, and they're not going to win this year. So they recognize that. So they're going to try and do anything that need to help them moving forward in terms of a draft asset or maybe a good young player if one comes available, or to try and shed some more money. So they don't care if they have John Collins on the roster
a week from now. They don't care if they have Jordan Clarkson on the roster a week from now. It doesn't matter to what they're doing now. So if they can find a place, a landing spot for any of those kind of guys, I've become I was partially, but now I'm all in spence on being a Colin Sexton guy. He's the most efficient player the Jazz have this year to this point. He's played the best, he's played the most consistent. He plays with force, he plays with energy.
I like the way he carries himself on the floor. He's one of the few guys who brings energy and some level of tough to the roster. So for me, you take market In, you take Kessler, you take sext Then you put those three guys to the side.
Okay, anybody else is fair game.
Anybody else, especially if you can make a move to get rid of some money, whether that's Clarkson who's making fourteen this year and fourteen next year, or whether that's Collins who's making twenty six. If you can move those guys to some team that wants them to values them in a way that they think they could help them
somewhere in some kind of a playoff drive. Then you look to do that kind of thing to get some kind of an asset, a future draft pick or another young guy or something that's making whatever it is, you do that kind of a move to set yourself up for the kind of stuff that you want to do this coming summer and beyond, because this year you're not
going anywhere, so it doesn't matter. So you're trying to figure out something that makes sense to add to what you're trying to build in terms of opportunities going down the road.
Let me follow up, since you reference Colin Colin Sex and you like what he's bringing. He's twenty seven years old or excuse me, twenty six years old, and I always kind of chuckle because we talk about Colin and John as if they're in their late thirties, because they're not Keyante or Isaiah or whatever.
Like.
He's still very much a young player that's entering his prime. His splits on the year about eighteen and a half points three boards for assists, and when you look at the shooting percentage, he shoots forty eight percent from the floor, he shoots forty two percent from three, and takes almost four to threes a game, which I never thought it would be his deal. So he's put in the work, he's improved a lot, and we always have this debate and I have a couple of other names. I want
to kick the tires with you on. But like the debate. Anytime I go on another show, another podcast and they want to talk jazz, they all ask me the same question, who's around when they're good?
And I've always said, well, market In for sure.
If you know, if they can with Pete Lowry's part of the future.
I think Walker is too.
Is there a debate in that front office room, like, hey, maybe Colin is part of this too, based off of what you've seen.
Sure, I would say definitely, because what he's done, He's always been a tough guy.
He's always brought energy.
His issue early on in his career was his his turnover rate and also his susceptible shooting. Now you look this year, and again it's half a year, so we see how the rest of the year plays out. But on a team that's struggling, a team that's having trouble with winning games, a team that's having trouble finishing games when they're in the fourth quarter, and it's still, you know, in the balance, and they have trouble doing those things.
Sexton is the one guy who has shown during this year so far that he can be counted on to make good decisions, can be galunted on to make a play when you need to make it.
He's one of.
Those guys who just plays hard every night, and his improved his shooting to the point where you say, well, now that's serviceable, meaning he can help a good team in terms of how he plays. He's not gonna be the main guy, but he can be a third or fourth or fifth guy on a team that is trying to trying to have some level of sustainability of winning.
So you might be able to move him.
Maybe you do, but at his age, the way he's improved, he looks to me like a guy that's the kind of guy I would want to have around, not only because he's shown that he can get better, but because of the energy he brings. Jazz don't have a lot of guys on their roster who when they come on the floor, you go, okay, now now we're.
Gonna see something that's for sure.
We're gonna get up into a guy We're gonna run a guy down from behind. We're gonna step in and try and take a charge. We're gonna push the ball down the floor from end to end, full blast. They don't have many of those guys, and Sexton is one
of those guys, and he's always been that. Now you put in this component that if his shooting, if that's if that's a real thing, and he can keep it around that forty mark from three, and he's an excellent free throw shooter and he's making better decisions, then he's a guy who's who's increased his value and has increased his ability to be able to help you in a
winning effort. See, that's what they're trying to see about all these other young guys they've drafted last two years, or any of those guys, whether it's a Kiante George or a Sensaba or a Collier, they're all young guys. Can any of them show that they can make those incremental steps of improvement like Sexton has here in the first part of his career, to show that they can contribute to winning. That's what they're trying to find, you know,
with this younger group guys. But to me, they've got a guy they've found who has shown he can do that in Sexton, and I would I would be surprised if that's someone that they didn't want to keep around.
Okay, so let me kick the tires with you on a rotational decision Will has made that I think actually means something. I mean oftentimes like maybe Drew you Banks gets another ten, I don't give a rip. It doesn't really matter if like Walker's out, is it going to be Philip Telapowski is going to be? You bet like you know Sphie makay Luke against Johnny ju saying all right whatever. But over the past four games, Kyant is coming in off the bench and Isaiah Collier has started
now thirteen times. So I want to break this down on a couple of different angles than give you the space, because I do believe if you're Will Hardy, if you're the Utah Jazz, you have to figure out who Kyante George is really as a rotational piece in this league, if he's going to be around when you're trying to win.
And I believe Keante's.
Role in pro basketball is going to be a lot like Jordan Clarkson's has been. Collins ex is in this, you know, kind of same type or of role for a good team, a guard you can bring it off the bench that can score. Kyante is one of the worst defensive players on the team and their second worst in defense it all of pro basketball, and Will has been very front facing about we need more from Kyanty on defense.
He's just not a lead guard.
He just isn't. He doesn't make great decisions.
His shots profile isn't great as percentages are down, but we do have a bit of a sample size. So in four games as a reserve, Kyante is at about fourteen point five points, about four boards, five assists. The shooting splits are just not good, no matter if he started coming off the bench, about forty percent from the floor twenty three percent from three. And on the other side, I'm starting to like what I'm seeing from Isaiah in
a way that I don't think I was expecting. So thirteen games as a starter now for Isaiah Collier, he's at eleven points, eight assists, three and a half turnovers, which was way too many turnovers, twenty three percent from three. He's got to improve the outside shot forty three percent from the floor. But you like eight assists you like eleven points and almost five boards. He's a big kid that can get downhill and makes better decisions I think than Keyonte does.
So attack this from both angles.
What we've seen now from Isaiah as a starting lead guard, and what Will's trying to do by bringing Kiante off the bench.
Yeah, well I think that first of all, the Collier kid, he's a young kid, but he's always been a point guard, so he's always had the ball in his hands.
He's always been making decisions. Now.
When he was sixteen seventeen eighteen, he was the bully on the block. He was bigger than the other kids, so he could blow by guys, he could overpower guys.
You could get in the lane, you could get.
To the rim, and he's always had a decent feel for finding guys on the move. Early on in this year, he's been very turnover prone. He makes wild passes. Sometimes seen him make numerous passes that go right over guys heads into the fourth row of the stands literally, and he makes some questionable decision and when he gets in traffic trying to get a bounce pass in a pocket pass that's not going anywhere because there's three sets of
legs there and it's not going to get through. But he has a feel for trying to move the ball. He's not a shooter at the moment. Can he can he improve that? Can he get to a Colin Sexton scenario. You know, he's only twenty years old. Can he improve that by the time he's twenty three, twenty four and be something that's serviceable in that in that area Because he's a big guy, he can hold his own. I don't like the way he is postured on defense. He
needs to get more impose himself more defensively. I don't know if that's his mindset. That's one of the things that I'm sure they're trying to flush out is whether they can get him up to that that kind of levels he's.
Learning on the fly.
He's got the size, he's got a feel, can't they? George, I agree with you. He feels to me like he's you know, his his role in the NBA, if he sticks in the NBA long term, is going to be as an off the bench scorer. Jordan Clarkson the Vinnie Johnson, the Jamal Crawford type guy who can get a shot, who who isn't going to defend for you, and so that's gonna be a problem. If he's not gonna do that part, then the other part, the offensive part, he has to do really well in order to make up
for that. So I don't think he's a point guard. I think they're they're they're they're giving Collier some run because that's what they're trying to do right now. They're in the developmental stages of their team. So the only way we find out is if we throw him out there to the Wolves and we see what they got. And so far, Calier looks like he's improving some. I still don't like some of the decisions he makes, but he has a little bit better feel than George does
at the point. And that's one of the things that Jazz are in the process of trying to feel.
Out quick follow up before you catch a break.
Is it possible to be either a league guard or a complimentary wing and play big minutes for a team that's trying to win if you can't shoot it from.
Three in the modern day and night of the NBA.
No, that's that's a good point and that and that's one of the things that he's uh he's gonna have to improve on.
He's gonna have to show because because the.
Teams are gonna sag off, the teams are gonna go under on that pick and roll.
They're gonna flatten it out at the line.
They're gonna say, hey, you make that eighteen footer, You make that twenty three footer. You know, you put it up over the top and show where he can do it.
So far, he's unable to do that.
That's one of the things he's gonna have to get better on if he's gonna get any kind of sustained run, you know, as as a lead point guard in this league.
All Right, we will catch a quick breaks Many's Liven Studio coming up next.
Some old friends were in town last night.
Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles, Mike Conley, Ni Kiel, Alexander Walker. We'll talk about the Jazz t Wolves game, look add to the schedule that lies ahead, and maybe do some other NBA trade deadline stuff.
All right, Porter, I want you to I want you to get Trey on the.
Phone and just tell him that he's dead to me.
That's all it just you can you can tut him, just say.
Hey, you're dead, Dispench. Can you do that real quick?
I'll give him you a pick.
So some breaking news that should have come through us here, but RSL will add Nick Romando's name to the stadium Ring of Honor at America First Field against DC United on June the fourteenth.
Nick he started his career. I think no, he just played for DC.
Then RSL traded for Nick Romondo after their starting keeper Scott Garlic retired to take a real estate job.
I'll just say it wasn't the story. Yeah, he got a real estate gig, Scott Garlic.
Yes, no, I'll never forget it. This was kind of my intro to MLS. We're in a staff meeting and the general manager of the time gets attacked since like, hey, you're starting keeper Scott Garlic has decided to retire because he got a job in real estate.
I was like, wait, what, MLS come a long way.
It has, but we had to pivot trade for Nick Romondo, who became the Wall of the Wassatch and so he'll have his name on the Ring of honor.
So excited for Nicky.
You got a hot Nick Ramondo tek that is so well deserved.
He was such a stable force for rsself for over a decade and you know what a great guy and still in the community, active in the community.
And that's a great and deserving honor for Nick.
Can you imagine sitting in a meeting with Scott Laden and the brain Trust back in the day and suddenly you get a message that Antoine Carr is retiring because he got a good job selling homes hey Now.
But the question would be, well he got into Scott got into real estate? Was that making more money than he was making for RSL.
And this was MLS in two thousand and seven.
I mean absolutely, and I believe it's worked out very well for Scott, who's a very smart, very nice guy.
Yeah, I mean, so, you know, hey, that's all that's all part of the real world stuff. And you know it was another generation ago, of course. But you know, back in Jerry Sloan's day, when he was playing in the sixties and seventies, most of the star players in the NBA had other jobs in the off season that they did to supplement their income because they didn't make
that much money at that time. You know, it's weird to think of guys like Oscar Robertson Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West And what those guys would be making now and what the NBA is paying is.
A whole nother world. It sure is.
I mean, can you imagine getting a phone call and it's like, hey, would you like to buy some car or life insurance? This is Larry marketing from the Utah right. I'm trying to supplement my income.
Hey, hey, hot Rod, hot Rod left the Lakers and retired in order to go work full time for Converse in the mid sixth because he could make more money working for convert.
That's wild, man, That's wild. All right.
We won't do anything on the All Start Let me just ask you this the new All Star game format where it's gonna be these all Star players from either conference broken up into three teams and they're gonna have a little mini tournament and the fourth team will be the winner of the Rising Stars Challenge? Does this do anything at all? Do you think it raises the interest? I only bring it up because for NBA fans of a certain age, All Star Weekend once upon a time
was awesome. You know, you had Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins going up against each other and slammed down contest, you had Larry Bird winning three point shoo shooting contest. You had two All Star teams that played hard, and when the greatest basketball players on Earth show up and play hard, I am of the opinion that it's the greatest game.
We just don't see it like we used to.
Yeah, well, it's I don't know what this new format is going to do. I don't know if any you know. One of the things is when when I was younger and you'd watch the All Star Game, there was some of fini for the guys in the West or the guys in the East, and you actually rooted for them. Now it's just a mishmash of guys. It's in uh, you know some you know, level of exhibition that's not
you know, really compelling. I don't think to the average basketball fan, you know, I think, you know, more attention is probably going to be made, you know, at the current moment right now about who didn't make the All Star team right whether you whether you want to argue for Trey Young, you know, who should be on the All Star team, or you want to argue for Demonta Bonus, who's for the second year in a row has been the biggest snub to me like that, that's just unconscionable
by the coaches, you know, not to put somebody like him on the All Star team for the way he works and the kind of guy he is and all that kind of stuff, you know.
But but it's.
That, you know, a few of those guys will get in any way because some of the guys who got voted in, as always happens, somebody has an injury, somebody decides at the last minute, I'm not gonna play because I got a rest for the second half or whatever. So a few of those guys will probably get in any way at the last minute. But it's always an interesting argument at this moment in time, after several days after it's announced all the reserves, like who didn't make it and who should be in.
So the Minnesota Timberwolves rolling to town last night, whenever one of our former players comes into town, it's fun to kind of talk about in reminiscent or six former players or several that former players, certainly, but let's kind of go down the list here, and you know, when the Rudy Gobert trade went down, the narrative around the NBA was like, wait, the Jazz got what for Gobert, And I felt like I was the only voice pushing back, saying, well,
hold on a second, Let's just let's wait and see, because you know better than anybody the way Rudy impacts winning when he's healthy. When he's right, Minnesota over the past couple of years has had a team that's like right there, kind of like you guys did with Gobert and Mitchell, but not necessarcessarily a team that's broken through.
They're been better as of late.
Rudy, when you look at the numbers, more or less has been the same player for them as he was for you. A little bit of a dip, but you know, as somebody that was there when you drafted him and got to know him and watched him evolve from this gangly kid who could barely run up and down the floor to the best defensive player of this generation.
How should we look back on the nine years when we had Rudy here?
Well, you know that was a team that that grew together. You know, Rudy came in, he spent two different stints in the G League, like your little known Trivia Spence. His first G League coach when when and one of my jobs at that time was with the Jazz was to go with our players if they got assigned to a G League team, to make sure they assimilated. Okay, and they were the team was going to use them the way the Jazz wanted to see improvement and blah blah blah and.
All that stuff.
But he went to Bakersfield and his coach there was Will Void, who is now the lead assistant for b YU men's basketball with Kevin Young, and he was the guy who who helped Rudy a lot in some of his footwork and post work and stuff uh at Bakersfield at that time. But Rudy, you know, Rudy worked his
way up the ladder. We talked about that before and and earned his place in the NBA that he has now his standing, and that was through a lot of his own determination and and hard work and and UH and wanting to be as good as he could be.
And that team grew together.
Dennis Lindsay did a great job of piecemealing, putting one one guy after another, whether it was Rudy, whether it was Uh. Drafting Donovan was bringing in Joe Ingles who had just gotten cut from from the Clippers, whether it was getting boy on Bogdanovich. You know, all these guys, you know, piecing together into a team that for a stretch over five year period, had the best the most wins of any team in the Western Conference, won two division titles, and one year I had the best wreck
in the NBA. Okay, stumbled in the playoffs, but I had a team that was built to win at that time, and Rudy was a centerpiece of that. And then when Ryan Smith and his group came in, they decided that, you know, in their way, that they didn't think it was good enough, and so they traded everybody and broke it all down and got all these draft picks and assets that they're now trying to work through and trying
to figure out how to rebuild the team. But those got you know, Rudy and that group, that was a great group to work with. They were all great guys, and they all grew together into a unit that was really one of the top top five teams in the NBA at one point in time.
All right, let's keep going down the list. And I thought one of the really fun moments last night was at the end of the game because joe ingles at the age of thirty seven with a surgically repair I even said postgame last night, after four minutes, my knee hurt. Like he is probably at the end of his career, and you know, he really will go down in history as one of the more beloved, kind of like cult
figure players we've ever had here. As I often say, he looks like he lives in his car, but he turned into a really good basketball player, broke the Jazz record for three point shots made, and really endeared himself to the fan base because you know, I remember when that team started to evolve and people would say, hey, what do they need, and I'd be like, you know, they need a player like Gordon Hayward when he s heut dude, like the small Ford spot.
I'll always look back. You know, we can't do it.
It doesn't mean anything, but you needed somebody to fill that spot. And Joey, I think, became a better player than ever thought he could be. And the OKC series where he's messing with Paul George and shutting him down a little bit. So he rolls back into town last night as he probably exits stage left after this year to go down his wife and kids.
When thee and the kids are in Orlando.
They stayed there as he's he is in Minnesota. Can I ask you the same question as you watched Joe go from who I called on air Dante Exem's babysitter, when you signed him to a legitimate starting, very good small forward for you guys, what was that process like?
No, he was Joe. Joe came in.
He was a very good player, you know, one of the main stays of the Australian national Olympic team. UH for a lot of years. I played over in Europe, was you know, had had a few good years over in Europe. I played actually with one of the Jazz front office guys U now Sean James. They played together over and over in Tel Aviv and and UH had a couple of great years and they're great friends. And Joe came over, tried to get in the NBA, got cut by the Clippers. Dennis liked him, brought him in
new kick shoot. Knew that he was a good passer, but he had to get his body in better shape. And Joe's credit, he looked at himself and realized, Okay, this is my shot. I gotta take advantage of this, and he took full advantage of it. Got in better shape, got himself able to move better, and because of his length and his size at six ' eight, could pass from the wing, could make open shots, and he did that for a number of years for the Jazz.
The other thing about.
Joe is that he brought an unusual mixture of toughness on the floor and getting into guys heads on the floor, but then coming off and getting on the bench and joking, having fun and making light of situations on the bench with his teammates to keep everything loose and fun for them.
And he was that way in the locker room, on the road, what have you.
But it's an unusual mixture when you have both of those things that one guy can do and do effectively for your team, and then be a guy who's willing and is smart enough to understand I have a certain role, I'm going to fit into this slot here, and I'm just gonna do that and I'm gonna let the other guys do what they do to help us to affect winning.
And that's that's one of his great characteristics was recognizing that and be able to put that into effect on the floor for a team that was a constant winner while he was here.
Let me ask a follow off about Joe because and I'll tell you off air where this came down, but somebody with the organization heard me on air talk about what a locker room leader he seemed to be, what kind of like a glue guy he seemed to be. And I can remember somebody asked Gordon Hereward who his best friend was on the team, and he said Joe, which I found kind of interesting. And then during the whole Rudy Donovan thing, it felt like Joe was kind of the only one that was kind of like, dude,
can we not do this please? What's real about the type of locker room guy Joe was?
Yeah? No, Well Joe, Joe, remember people forget that that in the Gordon Hayward summer when he left, Joe was also a free agent, right, and Joe went to Joe was in l A and uh Dennis and a couple of guys went to l A met with Joe and said, hey, we have.
A meeting with Gordon uh In in a couple of days, you know, but we want you to come back.
We want you to make sure, you know, uh, you know what what we're trying to figure out here, what we're trying to keep together. And Joe told them, hey, don't worry about me. Okay, you got to go worry about Gordon, get him figured out, make sure he's okay. Whatever, and my my thing, you know, will will be good. You know, don't worry about it. And he was that kind of guy who's you know, who was always a
team guy. He was always in on what's going to help us as a group, to help us to be able to sustain winning, uh, you know, on a regular basis.
And whatever that's gonna be, is that me starting and playing thirty six minutes, Is it me coming off the bench and playing eighteen minutes, Is it me coming in the second quarter and just trying to rattle the other team's leading score defensively and then come down on offense and make a play here, whatever it's gonna be, I'm gonna be that guy who's gonna try and do that for our group, not only for the benefit of the whole, but also because he felt that that showed some leadership
to the other guys, that that's how they should be playing. That was part of Joe's value to the group that sometimes I think goes unrecognized and that he doesn't get enough credit for.
Yeah, and I've always just kind of wondered exactly what's real and what's not, because I know at times maybe he could great on people with the ability I suppose to be very witty and sometimes very sharp. And we live in a state where some passive aggressive tendencies exist and sometimes people get their feelings hurt.
Was Is there anything there?
No?
But but Joe was great. Joe was you know what you saw out there on the floor, That's who Joe was. In the locker room, on the plane, you know, at the hotel, on the road, whatever. You know, Joe is a genuine guy and that's why everybody, everybody on the team liked him. The coaches loved him, they loved working with him. He understood and he was a good connector
between the coaching staff and the players. If there was ever anything going on, the coaches, you know, Quinn Snyder, his staff, Alice Shenson, they could go, you know, to Joe and go, hey, Joe, you know, we think it's such and such as a vibe.
So no, I got it.
I got it, and Joe would go and Joe would you know, would wait to day or later in the day or whatever, would be on the plane and and and he was a guy who could talk to the other players and and and uh rationalize with them about what was happening and and you know what, what they needed to address as a group.
But he had that status, right, he had that standing.
You know, people people know him as a guy from Australia and you know, a good player for the just but he's a big time guy and a big time name in Australia and you know, he's he's one of those guys in Australian basketball lore. And for him to be able to come here and assimilate himself into this culture.
Meaning the NBA, and then be able.
To have that kind of a standing within a team and within a team that was good and a team that was competitive every night, and to be able to find that niche where he he created value for himself both as a player on the floor in the middle of the game and also off the floor as a team leader, recognized you know, by by his peers as such.
You know, it was a big deal for us at that time.
One more player with all due respect in Aikil Alexander wat talker who's actually played well in Minnesota, really could not get off the bench while I was here very much on a Quinn. Let's talk about Mike by Conley, who did not play last night and who sadly, this is the first year I've watched him, and I've thought, okay, all right, it might be time. But you know, as I always say, play till somebody tells you. You can't if somebody wants to sign you and page, just keep playing.
And I can remember Dennis because Dennis used to come on the radio show every week. It's hard to believe in this day and age of NBA teams being so clandestine that we had that access.
And I can remember Dennis always.
He used to say one line he said, at some point, we'll want to expedide the process with the right vetro right. And Mike was the guy you guys decided to go get. And I loved it because I love him. Who doesn't not just as a guy, but he when he was at his peak, he was among the elite decision makers with a ball in his hands, pick and roll such you got you you know the deal you guys made the trade. Take us through that when you realize like, Okay, we've got something. If we can find the right vet
to expedite the process, will do it. And then how you landed on him.
That's right.
And Mike was a was a very good player obviously in Memphis for over a decade. UH, there was an opportunity to to to go ahead and get him. The price was we thought at the time it was a little high, uh for.
What it was.
But but we had to we had to look at everything and to put everything on the table, and we had to recognize that we had a unique opportunity at that moment in time to add a top level point guard and a veteran who had been through some wars uh to our group that we.
Thought was the one piece that was missing. He came in. Oh, our group made that move.
He became He became an All Star his only All Star appearance while while he was with the Jazz.
UH.
He instantly became a leader. You know, we we we knew his reputation around the league. We knew that he was one of the all time great guys. UH that that all the players just rallied around and he just had that certain low spoken, kind of low energy charisma, if that makes any sense, that people gravitated to and and and he was just one of those guys that fit right in seamlessly. And it was a great move
by Dennis. It was we We gave up quite a bit to get him and probably overpaid, uh for what you would would say was what you were getting in return, but not in our judgment at that time. What he brought to the group and finished a piece of that puzzle that we had been working on for years to try and get us, you know, over the hump. And we believed at that time and and and stuck by our guns, that he that was the move to make and uh and Dennis was able to pull it off.
And and he had an all.
Star year for the Jazz and and we were right there and had a couple of stumbles and the playoffs. Okay, you don't like that. Okay, that's why you didn't like to you know, whatever it is. But you know, to me, I've always felt that you can't discount what a team or a group did over an eighty two game, six month season relative to what happened in three games in one week in the spring.
It just you know, you can't do that. Some teams get hot.
Okay, Miami got hot a few years ago out of the eighth spot and had a couple of things fall their way, and all of a sudden, they're in the NBA finals.
Okay, they did that.
The Jazz had had better teams, had winning teams, had best reckon in the league, blah blah blah whatever, and they stumbled a few times in the playoffs and and then other decisions were made from there about that. But Mike Conley played such an important role in stabilizing that team at a time when that's what that group and he was really good for us in that period of time that he was here.
You know, to your point, and I discussed this all the time, And it's not just an NBA thing.
It's an NFL thing.
It's a Major League Baseball thing, it's a hockey thing, it's a soccer thing. Like winning is fleeting, success is fleeting, and you have to enjoy when you have the opportunity to just get Like in the NBA that always saying do.
You have a shot? You have a shot this year?
In the years that you can answer that question clear eyed, yes,
are the years that are really fun. But when they're gone and you're in this space where jazz fans are driving to the stadium most every night, at the arena most every night saying we have no shots, and we know we don't have a shot, and we know the deal, we know why they're doing this, it just makes you look back on years like you guys had with Gobert and Mitchell and Quinn and obviously all the way back to John and Carl and some Darren and booz Year's too,
is really fun years that you probably didn't appreciate as much because we can be spoiled here.
Well we you know, and I can tell you Spence those of us who are privileged enough and lucky enough to be on the inside and be part of those things as they were happening. Our group never took those things for granted, and we never we never thought that we were smarter than the next.
Guy or knew more than somebody else. You know.
We recognize that it was all about getting the right players in getting the players to work together, getting the right coaching group, whether it was Jerry Sloan or whether it was Ty Corbyn, whether it was Quinn Snyder getting the right guys and with a group to work together to try and work in the same direction.
That is a difficult thing to do in.
Pro sports, and one of our our responsibilities going all the way back to when Frank Laden was both the general manager and the head coach in the eighties, was was the notion that we have to get the right kind of guys in the spots and they have to have talent, they have to have skill, but they have to be the right have the right mindset to want to work together as a group, and if you can piece that together and do those things, then you're gonna
have a better chance at some level of sustained success.
And we had a lot of that over those years, and a lot of it was because of all the work that was done uh in the background, behind the scenes to try and get the right kind of guy, whether it was a Jeff Horni sec to plug In, or whether it was Carlos Boozer or Memeto core to plug In and their their skill sets and what they brought to the group with their personalities, or whether it was you know, a young Gordon Hayward or later of Mike Conley, guys Joe ingles, guys who brought other things
to the table that helped you as a group uh to be able to have a chance every night. And that's what the Jazz are looking for now with their
young guys. They're trying to figure out. And we've used this analogy before, Spence, but it's just like the old guy mining for gold in the river and you put a bunch of you put the big pan in the water, and you sift it and you sift it and all the rocks and the sand and everything comes through, and you hope that at some point you get a couple of gold nuggets that end up in the pan and that you can use going forward. And that's the process that the Jazz currently find themselves in.
Now.
Yeah, we do have a couple of recent examples of smaller markets, being your cousin who drove up to Idaho and bought a lottery ticket, came back and won the thing with Jokicicen Denver and Giannis and Milwaukee, and we'll see what Luca does in Dallas.
And we'll end with this.
You know, Lowry is not any of those players, but he's the best player on this roster. And we've talked about this over the past couple of weeks, and Tom Haberstrow, who joins Ushow every mondays some data on this. When teams and OK, so he did this with Shay and Lowry's not Shay. I'm not saying that, but when teams ask legitimate star players to be part of this process? Which part of it is you're not playing every night? And part of it is, hey, Lowry has your back.
Oh it's great. No, it's not. Sorry, it hurts, you know. And what's undeniable is Lowry's numbers are down.
Across the board.
They just are shooting percentages splitch you can get into the weeds on Basketball Reference. He's doing nothing better this year than he did last year or certainly the year before when he was an All Star. What's the danger of asking a twenty seven year old franchise pillar to be part of this? And is there a danger that you're wasting part of his prime before I set you.
Loose lender, Yeah, but it's the danger is if you have a guy who's not buying into what's going on right right, and with Lowry marketing and all signs point to the fact that he understands you know he was here.
He had a chance to play out.
As a as a free agent and choose where he would want to go the second half of his career. That's how the Collectibar agreement works in the NBA. He chose to sign the long term extension because he likes playing in Salt Lake. He likes the community, he likes living here. It's a lot of it has to do with his background and his upbringing, you know, in Finland, and some of the similarities of living in Salt Lake and outside of Helsinki and all those kinds of things
which are real life things. But his family likes being here. He knew what the deal was when he signed the extension. He knew that it was going to be some growing pains and he bought into that. And that's what you need. You need a guy who who understands the landscape and is willing to be part of that with you. Yeah,
his numbers are down this year. I attribute that just to being the fact that he doesn't have as much help and the other teams are playing are now gearing on him and they know, hey, if we slow marketing and down some then those guys aren't going to have much of a chance to win.
Because of the limited help he has.
And so part of that is on h is on that cause for for other teams, you're targeting him and and him not trying to do too much. He's just playing, playing his game, and and and he'll be fine. He'll be fine, and if they can get him some help then he'll be able to also go along with that and hopefully be able to see a light down somewhere at the end of that long tunnel.
Smitty, great to see, my friend.
Welcome back to the real world where it's not he greas and sunny every day and you don't have little drinks with umbrellas and all you can eat food.
So welcome back to Islam and it with the rest of us. It feels like that Spence whenever I'm with you. That's that's the vision I get. The Great Richard Smith