All right, you've heard of load bombs, You've heard of Sham's bombs.
Have you heard of smitty bombs?
Here's the question is Richard Smith is live in studio for an entire hour smitty Are you ready to drop some smitty bombs? Ye?
I'll tell you what.
There's a lot of people who use that phrase, but it has a whole different context.
Yes.
Now we're not talking about that time.
I don't want to get into that stuff.
We're just gonna stick with basketball today and uh, the NBA trade deadline coming and going, how you doing?
My friend getting to see you.
Yeah, it's great, you know this is uh.
I was just talking to James Peterson a few minutes before came in the studio and he was asking me do you miss this time of year? And I said, you know, it's interesting because this time it's always in early February, and it's kind of a you know, it's a big scouting period for college and stuff and just before the All Star break and so it kind of
comes at a good time work wise. But but you get all the people who are involved in these in these kinds of transactions, and all all the people on in a particular staff that are able to weigh in on them, and there's a lot of spinning your wheels and not getting anywhere because I don't know what the actual number would be, but I would guesstimate that of all the trades that are talked about and really the teams might consider in some respect, probably between two and
five percent of them actually get consummated. Like the vast majority just don't happen for whatever number of reasons. And so it's always a time of year where you're doing a lot of work, a lot of film study, a lot of phone calls, a lot of digging into research, and then at the last second somebody says, oh, yeah, the other team fell by, so it's out, and you're going, I just spent all this time doing such and such, you know whatever. I could have been doing something else,
but that's the gig, you know. So, and that's what a lot of teams are obviously were involved in these last few weeks in the NBA.
So you reference two to five percent of deals talked about actually happens, it feels like this time around that number might be higher. You know, I don't like you've been doing this forever. I've been around the league, my whole life. This feels smitty to me, like the most consequential NBA trade deadline of all time. We have thirty eight combined All Star appearances on the move, twenty combined first team All NBA appearances on the move.
Would you concur with that assessment? Potentially? Look, only time will tell.
You're always good to remind us of that, But this feels like, as of today, you know, a knee jerk, instant reaction, the most consequential trade deadline in pro basketball history.
Well, it involves so many big names, right, and it got off to a bang last week with the Laker and Mavericks deal. But it's interesting, you know, you can contrast that all the stuff and I know you've been talking and you talked with Andy last segment about you know this, do you really believe, you know, what they're reporting out of Dallas Law, how it actually took place, was actually the deal. There's got to be something else and there's got to be some other stuff was going
on or whatever. But you know, it's it's that was very different than the stuff we saw, you know, all along the last several weeks, right with Jimmy Butler in Miami, where everybody knew that the marriage was done and that he was he was gonna leave, and they were trying to get a deal for him and what have you. And you know, there's a there's a lot of different angles to it, and a lot of different people weigh in on the Butler thing and what was going on,
all the drama around it. And yet the Dallas l a thing nobody knew about it until it happened. And so you can see two different divergent ways of handling these kinds of things with big name players and what the you know, it's an interesting study about you know, is there a better way to do it? Is there one way is better than the other? Is this one makes sense and that one doesn't make as much sense,
or what have you? And so you can you can debate those things a long time, but but at the end of the day, an Indi team is going to do what they think makes sense for them in the business they're trying to take care of and you know, without regard to what anybody else is doing or what anybody else thinks.
About the way they're handling their business.
So from a jazz perspective, let's dig into what the Jazz did do, then we'll talk about what the Jazz did not do. So all in all, with the deals the Jazz made, they received five second round picks in essence, Drew you Banks, Patty Mills gone. And then the Jazz took on some smaller salary deals and they sent a lot of those players on.
Denni Shrude is in Detroit. Obama has been waived. PJ.
Tucker, I think ended up in Toronto after spending a minute back in Miami, and I think Jalen Hoodschafino will also be waived.
So five second round picks.
Then they received the twenty thirty one unprotected first round pick from Phoenix that they received in exchange for three first that they sent to the songs the least favorable of Utah, Minnesota, Cleveland. We already broke that deal down so strictly from an asset addition standpoint. And then I want to ask you about kJ Martin, because look, I
think there might be a little something there. Jazz fans might remember kJ Martin because he said his career high against the Jazz twice twenty one points twenty seven points. He started forty nine games for the Rockets, a couple of years ago. Look, I'm not saying that he's some answer, but from an asset accumulation standpoint, what do you make of what the Jazz did? Then explain to our listeners what their motivations were in making these transactions.
Sure, so the Jazz are in full rebuild mode, as we know, during the middle of the third year of this tear down and rebuild however you want to label it. And so they know they're not winning now, they know they're not going to win next week or next year. They're trying to develop young guys and also along the way try to get a veteran here or there they think can help them and start moving forward and start
making progress. So you know, all of the moves that they were involved in were all about asset accumulation, meaning get as many draft picks as we can get as many either expiring contracts or contracts of guys that we can turn around and flip around for something else, like the PJ.
Tucker deal that you knew they weren't going to keep him.
I felt, and you and I discussed this last night at the Jazz game. I neither one of us felt that that they were going to hold on to Dennis Shrewder didn't make any sense, but he was a cog for them to be able to do something else.
That that helped them and in terms of their long range planning.
So that that's the mode that they're and every team has its own motivation spent. Some of the teams are trying to get a guy to help them, you know, maybe one more guy that helps in a rotation that can help us, you know, like the Cleveland deal today.
Getting DeAndre Hunter, you know, a very good move I thought by them.
I agree, he's playing very well for for Atlanta and having a nice quiet season, but playing very efficiently for them, And I'm not sure, you know, they they gave up much, you know, in terms to get someone who can help them maybe that last piece they feel, you know, can get them you know, on top or toward that mountaintop. So so that was a great move for them. So
they're in that that mode of thinking. The Jazz, the Washington Wizards, or teams that are in the opposite mode of just trying to get get as many assets as they can for for future use or for other you know, movements, or to take money off their books or or whatever it is, and so every team has its own motivation, every team has a different.
Way they're going about it.
And then you know, nothing's been talked about, and I'm sure they'll be fallout of it going forward. But all the all the noise that was coming out of Phoenix about trying to get Jimmy Butler there didn't work out, mainly because of the Bradley Beal no trade clause. And then there was scuttle button the last several days about you know, maybe they'll move Kevin Durant, and Kevin Durant said, well, I don't want to go back to Golden State or whatever.
All those things that were going on, all that drama that was going on right well, Spence, Now the dust is starting to settle on the trade deadline. Phoenix didn't do anything in that regard, so they have their three big guns still there. Booker, Durant, and Beale. Right, they are looking this summer for a team that's right now at five hundred, struggling to try and get in the playoff situation and maybe getting the top six if they could even.
Squeeze in there at best case scenario.
They're looking this summer having a total outlay payroll, taxes and penalties of over four hundred million dollars for a team that's not in with the big boys at the moment. Now you look at their roster, they'll go, well they got three big boys. Yeah, well, for whatever reason, it's not working, and now we're gonna be paying all this money for something that's not getting us what that desired
result is. So you look at a franchise like that, they didn't get anything done this time because of the Beal no trade, no trade clause, and now you're looking at them and they've got to be sitting there going, oh man, what are we gonna do because we are stuck in the corner and we have no way of getting out of here anytime soon. And that's that's a big deal for a franchise that twelve months ago had all these thoughts about being at the top of the heap.
Yeah.
And I want to get into that in a little bit because I do think you know, Kevin Durant is shown to be a little petty and a little sensitive and his feelings get hurts, and he did not request the trade, and the Sons kicked the tires on him anyway. I mean look after Luca gets traded, everybody's got to be looking.
Around, going what's going on here? Like nobody's safe.
Hey, it's Spence, Spence.
You want me to give you the list, Babe, Ruth Will Chamberlain, Wayne Gretzky, however long you want me to make the list. Everybody is tradable. All these things that you read and hear about about oh he's untouchable, let me tell you nobody literally in professional sports is untouchable.
If the right deal comes along, or if you have someone who's in a position like like Nico Harrison, the general manager in Dallas, who you know, supposedly made a singular decision and got obviously the okay at the at the eleventh hour by ownership that if that's what you think we should do, then we'll do it. But those people act because of the information they have, because of the intel that they know that maybe other people don't or other people misconstrue or whatever it is, and that
it's the job that those guys have. And you know, I'm not saying I agreed disagree.
I can't.
You know, I can't a weigh in on that stuff just because it's too early to tell all that stuff. All that stuff will play out and in good time. But to have the confidence in what you believe makes sense to you at that moment in time is a big deal for an organization that really shook everything up and is still feeling the ripple effects, and they will for a while.
I have to say I'm proud of you for bringing up the Babe Ruth trade without getting upsets as a Red Sox fan, and of course I'm a Yankee fan because they Curse of the Bambino appeared to be real for a while and then steroids and David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez changed all that.
But let me but I wanted to.
I do want to ask you about kJ Martin, and let me just ask you now because I think the Luca topic is more interesting. Like I said, kJ Martin is not a piece that is suddenly going to change the perspective of the jazz. But of all the names I heard there, you and I talked to the game last night. True it was gone, okay, we knew that. Now he's a Piston. There's no way Talker was around.
Like I said, he's been rerouted twice. I think he's in Toronto, Jalen hood S. Chafino got jimmered his third year, didn't get picked up, and so I don't think he's an NBA guy. There's a little bit to like about kJ Martin, though, isn't there. I mean, forty nine starts for the rockets. He's not just to throwaway into the bench guy.
I think we might see him get some minutes, don't you.
Yeah?
I think you know he's a guy that you know, I would not be surprised if they if they were using him, you know, as as a long look as a person looks you bring him in. He's young enough, he's shown you that he has some skill, some ability. Okay, sometimes guys need a certain team to just get in and get a certain niche and a certain feel for that.
With him, my guess is that he came available. They said, hey, this isn't any big consequence to us financially, when when I get into a big hole here, he's a young guy. He fits a mold in terms of a long, you know, wing stretch guy. Maybe a three and D guy. Maybe I don't know, but you know, he's certainly worth looking at more closely to give him some run. I would think and to also get him in your locker room, get him with your group, find out on a personal
level the next the next couple of months. Is he a guy we want to work with going forward? Is he a guy that doesn't really fit what we're doing? Whatever it is. These are always the kind of guys in the time of the year that you see that happening with a lot of teams, like in a position like the jazz where you can afford to, you know, to just you know, try something and you see it happens, and it doesn't happen, it doesn't work for you, whatever it is, and then you just move on or you go, hey,
we got a nice, nice little piece here. Let's let's uh give him another couple of years or something and then get him into the group and and see how that plays out. So that's that's part of the laboratory experiment that the Jazz are going through that we've talked about before. Spence about you know, mining for gold and throwing it in the river and you know, shaking the pan and the rocks in the sand and everything comes out and maybe you find a gold nugget or two
along the way. That's what they're doing I think with a guy like kJ Martin.
So a little background on kJ.
He was the Sierra Canyon kid if that sounds familiar, That's where Brownie James played. He played on a team with Scottie Pippen Junior and Cassius Stanley, averaged seventeen and ten for a team that won the California Open Division back to back years. He was going to go to college at Vandy and then opted for a postgraduate year at IMG. Twenty points eight boards at IMG, and then he had that game at the National Prep Showcase where he dropped thirty seven.
He decided to declare for the draft.
He was the second round pick from the Kings in twenty twenty, traded to the Rockets, spent the first part of his rookie year with the G League team, and then was activated twenty twenty one, twenty one on.
January the fourth.
So he did have some good years with Houston before being traded. His season and career high as twenty seven points against the Jazz back in twenty twenty one, and his three years in Houston okay forty five games played nine points, five boards. First his rookie year, second year played in seventy nine games, two starts, eight points, four rebounds.
His third year was his best year, where he played all eighty two games, started forty nine of them, played twenty eight minutes a night, had thirteen points, almost five and a half boards, only shot thirty one from three and sixty eight percent from the free throw line. Then didn't really play much for the Clips, moved on to Philadelphia. So yeah, I mean, maybe I'm trying to stretch this out into something that it's not. But he is a young player that will get a look here. We'll see
if he can get something hold. Twenty four years old, Yeah, twenty four, So that's that's still a developmental guy.
And as a guy who's bounced around a little bit, and that's a guy you you kick the tires on if you're the Jazz and you just say, hey, you know, we'll take a look at him and see what we think, and the coach likes and doesn't like him whatever, and then we decide after that what we think we want to do going forward.
And just turned twenty four January birthday, so young twenty four.
All right, last topic here, and you know you texted me.
This and I chuckled because I keep talking about the ox Razor theory, which is the simplest explanation, is the one that usually you land on and a lot of travels halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on the old saying.
Right.
So, I've talked to you about this, I've talked to other people around the league about this. There are some different opinions. Bottom line, why did Dallas do this? Bottom line your understanding of the situation. You know people that are with Dallas. You know people that were with Dallas, Dennis, Lindsay and Detroit spent some time with Nico. So my guess is, you know, Siddy, why did Dallas elect to do this? Because from a basketball standpoint, I personally just.
Don't see it. Yeah, well it's I don't. You never know the whole story, Spence. So that's that's the first one that we put out there. Nobody knows the whole story except the few handful of people that are right right in the center of that and making it happen. But I will say this, My take on it is this. I believe that when when Nico Harrison decides that that he wants to consider something like this, the story I read about him meeting with with Rob Polenka in a coffee shop a month ago.
You know, just you know through the idea.
They have a long relationship with each other from back when Nico Harrison worked with Nike and he's working with Rob Polenka, who was working with Kobe Bryant and Poye Ryan was Nico Harrison's guy and all that. So they have a relationship that goes back a lot of years in a different context. Now you get to the present day. They feel they can be secure with each other. They feel they can be confident with each other that anything they discuss is going to stay between the two of them.
They supposedly have a discussion, hey, would you ever think about this? Would you think think about this? And whatever, and they decide to keep him on theself. I don't have any problem believing that that's that that's what actually took place, and because over a six plus year period and Nico Harrison wasn't there for all of it, but he's there ever since he got to Dallas several years ago.
He lived every.
Day with uh with with with the whole Luka Doncic thing. You like him, great player, great talent, a good guy. He's not a bad guy. You know, nobody should paint
him in that light. You know, the whole question about anything around him as a professional, as a as a an NBA player and one of the top players in the world literally, is you know, whether he is fully committed to his conditioning, to his skilled development, to getting better or is he one of these guys who's content with just coming And as we used to say, you know with Kevin O'Connor a lot, you know, there's some guys who just are satisfied getting a C minus in
the class. You know, as long as he's get degrees, you know, so as long as you as long as I passed the class, that's all I That's all I'm worried about. And maybe, and I'm not saying this is it, but I'm postilizing out there that maybe, you know, Nico had seen every day, every day for several years, that we're trying to get this guy to move in this direction. And now he was with Kobe Bryant. So Kobe Bryant
was a different animal. He was on the other end of the scale, working out fit, diet, all that stuff, twenty five hours a day. His entire career, So that was different. Okay, so that's way over there on that end of the scale. But Luka Doncic was known for, you know, having you know, I don't know, so tough time, but but just not being in the shape you'd want him to be in. And because of that, that affects
your your ability to stay healthy. It starts affecting your joints, whether it's your your feet, your ankles, your knees, your low back, you know, whatever it is. And so that
gets you off the floor. So my theory, my feeling is that Nico had seen all that and had said, you know what, I'm not sure that I'm convinced that he is going to eventually get it, because we've been doing this for six plus years and he hasn't adopted that the way we want, and it hasn't gone the way we want in that particular aspect of his career, and so I'm not sure that we as an organization should be in the position of trying to decide whether to give him what would have been this summer a
supermax deal in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty million dollars. Can we make that kind of a call on a guy who hasn't shown that he wants to do it in that regard, and what is his motivation going to be if and when he gets.
Three hundred fifty dollars. Okay, So that's what I think.
I think that's a bigger part of what went into that decision. Only time will tell if if he's right or if Luca. Maybe Luca gets around Lebron James and goes, hey, hey, oh this is how you do it. Lebron goes, yeah, hey, you know this is the way. Come on, come on, man, let's go. And he goes, oh, yeah, well I want to be Lebron James. And so okay, I guess maybe maybe. So in a perfect Laker whorld, Lakers are going, we
hope that happens. In the Dallas world, they're going, yeah, we'll see, We're gonna stand on the sideline and we'll see.
And that's that's what I think.
To play, all right. I mean, it is a massive risk. We'll see how it plays out.
Richard Smith Live in studio, the NBA Trade deadline, Camon Wentz at one o'clock Mountain time, the Utah Jazz made one minor move. They sent Dennis shrud On to Detroit. The old the old general manager of the Utah Jazz, Dennis Lindsay now in Detroit. So Dennis shrewd add some veteran leadership to a team that's actually played pretty well this year with the Detroit Pistons. Obviously, Smitty, we've been breaking down the most impactful deals. I think this is
the most consequential, for better or for worse. And you're always good to remind us the time will tell trade deadline and NBA history. We've talked about this from the standpoint of the Jazz and some big picture stuff, and you gave us a good list of players historically in every sport who had been traded, whether it's Baby Ruth or Wayne Gretzky, and everybody's available if the right deal comes along. Did you guys ever get close to trading John Occarl No, I didn't think so.
That wouldn't that, that wouldn't have gotten by Larry. Larry just loved both Carl and John so much, and rightfully so, as we all did. We were all on that gravy train for almost two decades. But if it was, it was never a thing. Of course, we had several summers where Carl you know, threatened, you know, in the media, you know, I'm not coming back and this and that whatever, and he and Larry would get together and then patch it up and you know, and that was a father son relationship type thing.
And then John had.
A couple of opportunities as a pending free agent to maybe go somewhere and get make some more money and get a bigger payday right in the height of his career. And you know, twice he famously just sat down with Larry individually, without an agent.
They went to lunch.
Hey, Larry, you know, if you can do this, then I'm okay, I get it. And Larry's going, well, I don't know, you know, maybe can we do this and they just they just hammer it out themselves. Yeah, and because but but there was it was different as unique, right. John at that time was in the middle of growing
his family that ended up being six children. And John's you know, a very stable, you know, home body type guy, and he didn't want to have to move his family around, and he didn't want to have to put kids in different school.
Rules and all of that.
So for him, a lot of it was, hey, if you're just fair with me and what I think makes sense. I don't have to get paid more money than Gary Payton.
You know, I'm just as a hypothetic, you know.
I just I just have to feel like you value me for what I what I bring, and what I think I think is fair, and if we can come to an agreement like that, then then we're all good, you know. And so so those are those are different approaches, different different guys, you know. But it wouldn't if, if and when it to answer your question, if it had never gotten to any kind of a point of that nature, in my opinion, it would.
Have never gotten by Larry. Larry would have never.
He would have said, no, no, you guys, go back in the room, close the door, figure it out.
Because when I when I'm not doing that, do I remember And I may just be I mean, I could be making this up, could be a figuring of my imagination. But something in my mind is triggering a memory of the potential Carl to Dallas thing at one point that may have been talked about.
I don't know how serious that was, or maybe he was just a rumor along.
I don't remember that Spencer. Thing I do remember is going way back to the beginning of it. In the draft. In Carl's draft in eighty five, we all believed that Dallas picking six, was going to take Carl because he was a so called local guy from Louisiana Tech was only like three hours from Dallas, and and we thought that's that was where he was going to go in
the draft. And then when he didn't, and then he went by nine to ten, then we thought, well, there's a chance he might get to us at thirteen, and again he was just a guy on the list of all these other guys. And then and then Washington took Kenny Green from Wake Forest at twelve, and I remember Scott looked at his dad, coach Layden and the general manager also time, and said, well, we got to take the Malone kid from Louisiana Tech.
And and and I remember Frank said, are you sure? Is there something wrong?
Because you said he was gonna go five sixty seven and now he's here at thirteen, So is there something we don't know, like he has a bad knee or he's a bad guy, or something that we don't know. And I remember Scott said, well, no, we don't. I don't have any of that info and I haven't heard any of those things, but he's too good a talent not to take him at thirteen. And then just you know, hope for the best kind of thing, and Frank goes, okay, that's I hope you're right and he was right. I
hope you're right and he was right. The rest is history. Yeah.
I don't know why I remember that rumor surfacing at some point. But anyway, yesterday's news, all right, we already talked about what the Jazz did do. Smitty gave us a good breakdown on kJ Martin, the only actual tangible piece that remained as PJ. Tucker has been moved on twice. And think I think our guy landed in Orlando. Jalen Houcha Fino is probably not an NBA player, no longer on the roster, and then Bamba was waived, so kJ mar Josh Richardson also waves. So kJ Martin's the only
tangible piece that Jazz brought in. They have five second round picks in their back pocket and an unprotected first from Phoenix in twenty thirty one. All right, every day it was like John Collins getting traded. Every day I heard some sort of John Collins to Sacramento John Collins, This John Collins, that John Collins, Collin Sexton, Jordan clarks And they were jazz man yesterday and they're jazz men today after one o'clock mountaintime.
Yeah, what do you make of it?
Well, first of all, I thought they played really hard last week.
It was a fun game, yeah.
You know, and it looked like to me like, oh, these guys know that this is a try this is a tryout.
Yeah, yeah for somebody Clarkson goes for a thirty player, yeah exactly.
And so but it didn't work out that way my guess. And I don't know anything spence about it, but it would make sense to me if we assume that that the Jazz who are trying to move a couple of those guys just because they don't fit the timeline they're on to maybe if they could get some assets and they would also save some money. Probably they probably were asking for whatever it was that just either didn't work out with another team that you know, maybe didn't didn't
value them as much. But it also could could have been just logistics where maybe another team said, oh, we'd like John Collins, but we can't figure out a way to fit him into twenty five million dollars. We don't have that. We don't have that space. We're over the cap, we're into the luxury tax, whatever it is. And and the only guy we can trade back to you is Spence Checkets, who never gets off the bench, who also
happened making twenty five million. I like it, yeah, And so you know, and the Jazz go, well, Spence seconds, what we're gonna do with him?
You know, we don't have to put it in that conversation, you know, and say they say that anyway, I wish I argue with.
That, but anyway, so they probably had discussions. It either didn't work out because of what the Jazz were being
offered to come back. I don't know if that would really be a big inhibitor, to be honest, because I think it would be more better for them long range to move on from that from those guys in terms of roster construction, but probably logistics where the teams they are talking to just didn't have any wiggle room to make a move happen, because if you're over the salary, captain, you have to trade dollar for dollars, So you'd have to trade somebody who's making equal amount of money and
probably just didn't make sense for the Jazz.
And so my guess, and it's just that is.
At the end of the day, they ran that around the circle several times, came up with nothing, and so now we just move on.
All right, One more question here regarding what the Jazz did not do, because there are a lot of Jazz fans and look, it's always inter just didn't consider the level of you know, functional NBA knowledge in a fan base. I think most fans just want to go watch a damn game and then don't give a rip about the mid level. Your second apron means you can't STI a
player for twelve point eight. No, they don't care about that stuff, right, And I think we have a lot of basketball fans in this market that are wondering, okay, like Luca tieron Fox, brandon Ingram et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, seven or eight, like difference making pieces were moved at this deadline.
And these fans are looking at a team.
That at times it's fun to watch because they're young, and they play hard and they get all that stuff and they know the deal. I suppose, But for a jazz fan out there is going, wait, we're not very good, and it seems to me one or more of these pieces would have made us.
A lot better right away.
Why didn't the Jazz do anything that actually provides immedia tangible value?
What do you say to that jazz fan today.
Well, first of all, you have to have it takes two to tango so and sometimes three or four uh teams that to to work out a deal. The I'm sure the Jazz called because your your responsibility is to make all those calls and to make sure you're you're in the loop on whatever's going on with other teams. You know, are you trying to get Do you want brandon Ingram?
Do you like him?
At that number? Is gonna be a free agent this summer? Are you're gonna You're only gonna trade for him if you think that you can re sign him and because you like him and you can keep on your asster. But it's gonna take a good chunk of money to
do that. The Aaron Fox, you know, that kind of thing is is interesting to me because I don't know in this day and age how a player says I want to be traded and I want you to trade me to Team A. And then your team figures out a way to trade you to Team A, like I don't know how how you get to call that shot and that and that and and that's what happens. But okay, however,
however that happened. But again, Sacramento I had to have a third team come in and they had to have somebody, and they were able to get Zach Levine in, right, So they go, well, if this guy's not gonna re sign with us in a year and a half, then you know we got to get something now. We don't want to do it. They didn't want to trade Deer and Fox believe me. You know, he's a linchpin of their team. He's a big time player for them. But if if that's what it's gonna be, we have to
get out in front of it. So okay, how are we gonna do that? They they figure out some day they call everybody, do you guys want in? We're trying to figure this out, And when the dust settles, they end up bringing back a very good player and Zach Levine, who's having a career year this year at age twenty nine. So he's right in his prime. And they they you know, they get something that's that's ten, that's very good.
You know.
On a similar part, I don't know if you call them the same level player, but pretty close the Aaron Fox and Zach Lavine. And so they get something for it. And uh, you know the Jazz, who are they offering
to make something like that happen. They get a team where they can trade a bunch of draft picks, but a team those kind of teams, you know, whether it was you know, Dallas, whether it's the Lakers who believe they're they're good enough to make some noise, whether it's Golden State who believes they're good enough to make some noise, Sacramento who wants to get back in the mix of
trying to make some noise. So those teams aren't going to take a bunch of draft picks because it doesn't help them now, and so that's what happens in that regard.
So you're not helping a team.
Get higher up on the ladder by giving them a bunch of draft picks or trade assets. So that doesn't help them. So now what does help them? Well, we'd like to, uh, can we talk about lowry marketing. We just signed and and by the way, they can't trade lowry marketing until this summer, so that's not even a wasn't even an option for the Jazz. So now you're talking about whatever players someone else would want. Uh So
all those things become complicated, spends. A lot of it has to do with with salaries and matching salaries and teams that are.
Over the the over.
The cap, which most teams are, which means you have to trade one one which becomes difficult in itself, and and a lot of those kinds of moving parts just make it you're really intenable. Look you look at the other teams that are waddling in the bottom right, whether it's Charlotte, whether it's Washington. You know, maybe Portland is
also kind of in that group as well. No, no, no players want to any of those teams because the teams that are trading those level players aren't getting from those teams what they need to keep their their momentum moving forward. And so that's why you see these guys
going to other teams. Now, the the Ingram thing is interesting to Toronto because Toronto is one of those so called rebuilding teams but they they probably have some kind of understanding that that they they like Ingram enough that they're going to work something out with him to uh in free agency to re sign him and have him be part of their their group of Scottie Barnes and those guys going forward.
So you know that might be a different deal.
But that also involves the agents, and you know who's negotiating stuff behind the scenes, and and a lot of those kinds of things that also come into play.
All Right, Smitty, before I say you lose in your opinion, what is the greatest trade in Utah jazz history? And there are a couple of trades that could manifest themselves as the greatest trades that are still going on, namely Gobarton Mitchell. We'll have to see how that turns out. Adrian Danley for Spencer Heywood way back in the day. There have been a lot of the Darren trade trades that draft that brought draft capital. It turned into Darren
Williams and Gordon Hayward. I tend to think it's the horn Seck deal just because that's what put the team over the Humpting in the finals. But you were there forty years best most consequential trade in the history of Utah Jazz is what and.
Why Well, I would say, in two different, two different pieces, Spence, the best trade or the most valuable in terms of what you got back was Adrian Daley because Adrian Dantley was a led the NBA, scoring several years, gave the Jazz some legitimacy in the early eighties with Daryl Griffith and Frank Laden was able to put those guys together and build a team from there with Thorough Bailey, with Mark Eaton, with Bobby Hansel, with John Stockton, with Karl
Malone that then became a good competitive team.
Now they're often running.
The most consequential trade, in my opinion, I agree with you for one of the few times we ever agree on that uh was was the Jeff Horner Sack trade for Jeff Malone. Jeff Malone a very good player, was very good for the Jazz for three years. But but getting Jeff Horner Sack what he brought to the floor, but also what he brought to the locker room and who he was in terms of bringing the group, helping to bring the group together even more so under Carl and John's a player leadership.
Now you've got a guy who who can come and.
Get that that third guy who can score for you, who will compete, who's smart, who knows what's going on, and uh and he he came at the right time with the right group and and propelled that that team, you know, to the greatest heights that the jazz franchise has had during during his his years here.
So that has to be considered the most consequential trade.
I agree, Smity, Great to see you. Good stuff today. Enjoy super Bowl? Who you got? Real quick?
Super Bowl?
You got pick? You got the Chiefs Jets. That's brude. They missed out again this year. Just bear you got the Chiefs. Probably all right, my friend. Great to see you, okay, The Great Richard Smith