He's the pride of Norwich, Connecticut and an adopted son of Salt Lake City. After forty years with the Utah Jazz, there's no one better to talk some hoops. Richard Smitty Smith is back on the drive on ESPN seven hundred.
All right, Scott Mitchell's gonna roll by coming up in about an hour from right now, and then Bill Riley will join us following Scott's hit.
Bill's gonna join us at four thirty.
So back to some college football, some good stuff with Joe Fordenba today talking a little pro football, little college football.
But it's been too long.
We have our guy back in studio, forty years with the Jazz front office and now just living the dream. Richard Smith, Smitty, Happy Tuesday, buddy. How we doing it is a dream too?
Oh?
I know?
Look look look where I've gotten the station in life that I've gotten to right now? Where on the opening act for the big hitters like Scott Mitchell and Bill Riley?
How about that? Yeah? I mean we would have thunk it.
This is the you caught the final branch, Miittie, where your final brand. We're we're propping you up. We appreciate your time. Man, how you been What's what's what's what's been going on with you?
Hey, we've been on this, uh this worldwide tour that that my wife and I have been on all year and and in and out of town every month. We have something going on. And we were back east and got my my final two baseball parks in and uh so I've got all thirty ballparks under my belt. We did that and went to the US Open, and then went down a couple of weeks ago down to Phoenix to see Green Day and concert.
And a couple of baseball games.
And now next week because of our good friend Wesley Ruff and thanks again to West, he he got me in uh with Gina down at the h the PGA tournament at Black Desert. So we're going to volunteer and work down there next week and and have some fun seeing the course for the first time. I know, I know guys like you've been down there mastering the course.
What's for VIP playing?
Yeah, I got it, I got it, man, And that's why I'm I'll be down there working and probably emptying the garbage cans or doing something.
But like I said, living the dream.
It sounds like all right before we do a little jazz. I wanted to, you know, we said goodbye to the Bees here in the Capital City last week and I wasn't able to get down there last week, and I have been to a couple of games this year. Wanted to make sure I got to a couple before they moved. And you were there, and our guy Frank was there.
I wonder what that was like.
Frank has been such a fixture at that ballpark and you have two and after thirty years, they're heading down south to Daybreak. And you know, I'm a fan of the Miller's obviously, with what Gail Larry before Gail and then both of them, then Gail as the lone steward after Larry's passing, and I believe in their plan. You know, I've had Steve starkson studio, and if the endgame here is major League Baseball, which we all hope it is,
I understand it. I live in Salt Lake, so it's a little bit of a bummer for me, and excited for our friends and daybreaks to experience it. But what was it like to be there for the final time with Frank?
Yeah, it was. It was interesting. It was very Uh, it was very emotional just from the standpoint that went while you're there, and at the at the end of the game, they let everybody come down and like run the bases or kind of just experience being on the
field for a moment, you know. And and they usually do that with young kids after weekend games, or run the bases, but they they just let everybody come down and there were older folks down there with their with their canes and just walking, you know, from from home to first or whatever, just to be on the field one last time. And it was, uh, it was quite
emotion think about it. Spencer Andy Larson did a great piece on this prior to it, uh with the sole A Tribune that that you know, baseball has been played on the corner of uh West Temple and Thirteenth South for almost one hundred years, you know, and now it's uh, uh it's going away. I you know, I'm in the
same boat with you. I get it. You know, Hey, look we're doing this with the Bees and and and uh the week later, the Oakland A's at the major league level are doing it, you know in Oakland and they're leaving and you know, and that's just you know that that's happened over the course of time and in pro sports.
And teams leave and and and so forth.
But you know they're not leaving the market, obviously leaving for a different venue. But one of the misnomers, uh, I want to throw out there just to correct for people who who think that was the closing of the ballpark and and that and that baseball is done there. Actually, next spring, Utah Baseball will still be playing one more year at Smith's Ballpark as their ballpark being built up
at the university campus uh is being finished. So there'll actually be some baseball played their next spring as a as a last hurrah, if you will, for for people who want to get down there and and see it one more time.
But but it was emotional.
They had a great Phil Collins song playing over the speakers at the end of the game, you know about going home and stuff and.
And uh, uh you know it was uh it was.
It got a little tearful as you were walking out and going this, I guess this is it.
This is this is the end of it.
Certainly Frank can speak for himself, as we all know, and I'll ask him this next time. I have the opportunity. But I wonder if you could shed some light on what it was like for him. Uh, seventheenen stretch. You know, that's his deal man. So what do you think it was like for Frank?
No, And I'll tell you what. He was in great form. He not only did the seventh inning stretch and take me out to the ball game, but he had added just a little, a little ten second note at the end of it about we're gonna miss your old ballpark and we love you and and God bless everybody you know that's been coming here all these years, or something something to that effect. And was it was very heartfelt
and I know, as Frank, only Frank can do. He spoke from the heart and right off the top and and uh it was a nice conclusion to it.
Help help me remember Abbottsfield Brooklyn Dodgers, Yes, right, I mean maybe one of, if not the most famous baseball teams to get.
Out of town.
Yeah, Frank, Frank was a fan, right, and so he watched the Brooklyn Dodgers become the Los Angeles.
He saw them move from Brooklyn after the fifty seventh season. And most people forget or or you know, if you're not a real baseball fan, maybe not aware that both New York City and It's hey day in the forties and fifties when all the teams were competitive, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Yankees of course in the Bronx, and then the New York Giants. They were over in the Polo Grounds, which from a physical standpoint, you could walk from one to the other. They were only like three
miles apart, but three big time Major League teams. And after the fifty seventh season, the Dodgers leave Brooklyn to go to La and the Giants leave the Polo Grounds and go to San Francisco. And it was actually a time when both the owners got together, the Dodgers and the Giants, and said, hey, we're gonna move. Yeah, you're gonna move, because we're not gonna move unless you're moving. Yeah,
we'll do this together. We'll do it at the same time, so we'll be natural rivals on the West Coast, which you know, just transferred the rivalry from the East Coast to the West coast. But they actually there was a moment in time spence during all that where the two owners were trying to negotiate now where do you want to go? Yeah, well we were thinking about well, I don't know, we kind of liked that too, but what
do you think about? And they actually just kind of sat in a room one night and just hashed it out and said, well, well we'll go to San Francisco. Okay, Yeah, that'll be okay. Are you sure because we're gonna go to ll Yeah okay. And so it was easy as that. But both of them made the move with the idea that we have to we have to make get more revenue from where we are now. And not only was
it tendance, but it was also in concessions. It was also parking because if you knew anything about Brooklyn and the Polo Grounds, there was no parking around those venues and so it was all you know, you know, hit and miss and for the fans and all that. So they both moved west. It both built ballparks where they owned the parking around the structure around the facility. So
and to this day it's still the same. Obviously, in La Chavez Ravine, you go to a Dodger game, you have to park in the Dodgers parking lot because there's nowhere else to go.
Now there's some.
People who park down the street like two miles away and they make the half hour walk or whatever. But realistically, they built it, and they surrounded the ballpark with a three hundred and sixty degree parking lot, so you go to a Dodger game, you have to pay them to park. And of course they owned the concession, so they got all this and that's how they built up there their farm system in the sixties and seventies and became very
competitive and obviously still are today. And the Giants did the same thing when they originally moved, you know, west and got Candlestick Park.
Yeah, you know, the Cleveland Browns, the Baltimore raven stuff.
Like.
Communities lose their teams all the time. One more thing on this though, because I found myself a little, i don't know, a little I guess sympathetic to the folks in Oakland because now they've lost the Warriors, they've lost the Raiders, and they've lost the A's. Now, as you just outlined the motivation behind all these moves, it's one thing.
It's one thing.
Only The golden rule is the man with the gold makes the rules, and folks trying to you know, generate more revenue and create more revenue streams, parking and such in the Bay Area, I guess has provided that for the Warriors in a way that Oakland, I guess couldn't couldn't hang on to the Raiders. And now they've lost their baseball team. What do you make of when a community like that. I mean, it's one thing for Salt
Lake to lose our minor league baseball team. To daybreak, you want to go see the Bees, you just have to drive another twenty three minutes, you know, right, right right. It's a whole other thing when a community over the past I don't know, six seven, eight years, has lost a basketball team that won four titles when they were there, a football team that won two titles while they were there, and a baseball team who at one point was thought to be the Darleida Major League Baseball. They never got
over the well they won back in the day. But like the Billy Bean moneyball stuff. You know, some great Oakland A's memories certainly old enough to remember the Bash brothers, can sag or McGuire so three like community changing assets gone?
Yep?
What do you make of that?
And for people who aren't aren't aren't really familiar with it. In the Oakland area, those two venues are literally right next door to each other, as it should be, right off the freeway the A eighty, and they share a huge parking lot area. And to have that whole that whole complex now is literally just sitting there. I don't know what the plans are by oak or Alameda County that runs those facilities, but it's uh, it's really a shame.
It's really now literally a ghost town. You drive by them and there's nothing going on.
You know.
Everything is shifted, whether it was with the Warriors, you know, over to the San Francisco side, you know, and they're right down the street from where the Giants are, uh now, and so everything's kind of centered in San Francisco. And and of course the Raiders moved to Vegas and now they're supposedly the A's are going to eventually be in Vegas at some point.
But it's but but it's tough. Look, the.
Raiders had the fan base they just wanted. They just wanted a new setup and new revenue streams that Oakland couldn't provide. The A's dwindling attendance and in the last ten fifteen years, wanted to get a new ballpark like the Giants had, couldn't get it, and the taxpayers there kept kept voting it down, and so and and and rightfully, so why should they pay money for somebody else's business,
you know, Larry Miller always took that stance. You know, why why would I ask the taxpayers for money when it's my business?
You know.
So the A's are now gonna, you know, go to Sacramento for a few years and hopefully get eventually to Vegas. But that's gonna be another interesting thing, the whole Vegas A's thing if you look into it, because they're tearing down the Tropic Cane when I was there a few months ago. It is coming down. It's it's a big
construction site. And yet you know, there are several engineers who have written independent people have written reports about that footprint and Vegas on that corner across from MGM Grand and saying you cannot put a major league ballpark on that footprint and make it work in terms of logistics and what you really need engineering wise, not to say what it would impact obviously with traffic and parking and all the things, but that part of Vegas and the
south end of the Strip is is like that anyway.
It's it's a big mess in the zoo.
And you know, but everybody goes anyway, right, everybody's going to the Raiders games. People flock in to see the w NBA, the Aces play T Mobile is always packed whenever they have college games at T Mobile. They've figured it out at UNLV at Thomas and Max, so they'll figure something out. But it's it's going to be interesting, it's not. It's not this slam dunk deal. I think that a lot of people are assuming the a's are
automatically going to that site. That's that's going to be an interesting thing to watch.
Last thing in this space, then we'll move on.
And Commissioner Silver gave his annual you know, State of the Union whatever you call it, prior to the start of training camps in the NBA, and he said, you know, there's no imminent plans to expand, but eventually they will. And the talents there, certainly in pro basketball when you look at a lot of the players that are out of the league that seem to be still somewhat young and really good, I would imagine, you know, there is an argument at a time. You know, at one time
that expansion would dilute the talent. I don't know that I'm there with it anymore when it does happen, because I'm also old enough to remember commissioners, you know, Pete Roselle, David Stern, Bargie Imani like older commissioners that are no longer there talking about how they would never touch Vegas because of the gambling, the nightlife or whatever it is.
And now everything has changed because all these sports are in bed with the gambling companies, and so now it feels like Vegas, Super Bowl, Final four, whatever it is. When the NBA expands, do you think it is Vegas? Do you think it's Seattle? What do you think that looks like?
Yeah, that's what I would think, Spence. The logical places are Seattle and Las Vegas. As the current economy dictates. You know, Saint Louis may try and get in the mixed. Louisville may try and get in the mix. Vancouver or Montreal.
I'd be behind Vancouver. I was from that. We lost that sit.
Yeah, and you know I'll all be in the mix. All have have groups that will that will make a pitch anyway, But it just seems like the big dogs in the fight at the moment would be those in Seattle and the people who want to get it in Vegas, because that just seems to be where everybody is flowing.
And the NBA has a relationship with Las Vegas for the last twenty years with the Summer League, and they have they and and until last year, we're also holding their G League showcase there in December every year, and the league would have meetings there and every team would be there. So those seem like the logical places that they would go to next.
So before we maybe we'll just do some jazz on our next segment, because I did want to kick the tires with you on some news that came down today.
Gonzaga is going to join the PAC twelve.
And you know, Mark Fuse, a guy who I know that you know, and he's probably had opportunities to take jobs and other places over the course of his career because he's been so good up there. But from a college basketball standpoint as far as how much it moves the needle, I just wanted to get your take on what Mark is built up there. Because Gonzaga is joining a conference because of the basketball program, right, which is a rarity in today's day and age of college athletics.
The only other school I can think of that would be able to do something like this is Yukon, right, because the football program is, you know, not what the basketball program is. But what do you make of what mark is built up at Gonzaga where they can actually get a conference invite because of their basketball prowess only?
Yeah, well, it's a tremendous feather in their cap that they've had that kind of a program for over twenty years now, twenty five years and counting. They don't have football at Gonzaga, so they rely heavily on men's basketball for whether it's revenue streams or whether it's increased enrollment or applications for admission and that kind of thing.
What Mark few will do?
You know?
That would be interesting because I.
Don't know, you know, if and this is just me, I don't know anything about it at all. But you know, when you're making a move like that, are you still going to be the big dog, you know, or or as you would say, the big fish in the little pond as they've been for so long in the West Coast Conference, right, Saint Mary's is as as far them somewhat by U somewhat when they were in it, but
they were always the top dog. And now if you're not, if you're not going to do that, and now with N I N I L stuff and and the and the transfer portal, how are you What is it going to be your attraction to those players to keep them, and what is going to be your base from a uh financial standpoint to be able to stay where you are in those circles that you know, uh, they've been. They've been more than a few coaches spent just in the last couple of years that I've known who have said, Hey,
I can't deal it, deal with it. It's a whole different deal. I'm out of here, you know, and have just retired and left the game. You know, whether it was Randy Ray up at Weaver Stay or whether it was uh Jay at then at Villanova. You know, Mike Krychevski of course, is a little bit older, so you know,
probably a ripe time for him to retire anyway. But a lot of prominent guys in the last couple of years have said, you know, I don't think I can deal with this stuff, and so, uh, Gonzaga moving into that kind of conference will be interesting to see, uh just how Mark Few deals with that on a personal and professional level.
Going forward.
All Right, some some sad news the surface this week. And I had a chance on a few occasions to meet to Kenby Matambaugh. He was at Patrick Ewean's retirement of the Garden. And you know, jazz fans remember great battles with Mark and and Carl you know, back when the Kembe was in Denver, Uh, when he was in Atlanta, the Knicks and the Hawks had a little thing going back and forth. And you know, we could talk about his game, certainly a second all time in blocks, one
of the best rebounding blockshot bigs of that era. But it seems like most of the conversation this weeksman, he has been about who he was when he wasn't playing as an ambassador. And you are uniquely qualified to talk about this. You've done some stuff basketball without borders down in Africa's home country, republic of Congo.
What would you.
Tell our listeners about your knowledge of de Kembe as he passed away this week at the age of fifty eight.
Yeah, what sad news to get you know, that he died of brain cancer, and one an awful thing to have to deal with, and at such a young age. He was a very impactful player on the court. He was very meaningful to the teams that he played for in terms of his personality, in terms of his his
total approach to the profession. You know, he was really a great locker room guy, uh that that rally people around him, but even more so off the court, both for his his home country, both for the continent of Africa, both as an ambassador for the NBA. He was the first official NBA Ambassador, International ambassador, and was employed by the NBA for for many many years to go around the world and and and preach the game of basketball
and to represent the NBA at the highest levels. And he was a guy who could get it done, and he had that personality. He also had a certain level of humbleness about him, you know, where he was able to meet you know, dignitaries and and politicians in different countries and at the highest level and be able to get in the door and and talk with them about you know, spreading the game and building basketball courts and getting infrastructures in place for countries and to get involved
in this sport. And he was just a great global ambassador. And what a genuine person he was who was grateful for the opportunities he got in this country to do what he loved to do, and then was all about giving back to that after his career. And what a what a loss for the game basketball, what a loss for humanity in general to have someone like him pass away at such an early age.
Yeah, well said all right.
Coming up next to Jazz open up training camp. It is that week in pro basketball, so we'll do a little jazz coming up on the other side. Also, Donovan Mitchell loves Cleveland because he can dress for the cold and he's excited about the future. Where have we heard that before? We'll get somebody's take on that. I want to tell you about my friends at Diamond Coat Diamond Cote Premium home Siding. They're new here Alongawasatch Front. You won't believe what they can do to your home's exterior.
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premium home siding, Limitless potential, endless styles and colors. They're your total design solution. There are year round, weather ready, durable in all seasons. Discover more at diamondcoatsigning dot com. That's Diamondcoat, spell Kote Siding dot com. All right, some Jazz coming up with Smitty live in studio, keep it right here on ESPN seven hundred. We've got Scott Mitchell stopping by today at four o'clock to talk from Utah football. Then the voice of the Utes, Bill Riley, will be
our guest after that. So some college football coming your way. We'll get back at that. Coming up in a bit. Smitty is live in studio, the great Richard Smith forty years with the Jazz Front Office. Speaking of college football so many. We might have two really good teams in our state. We got Little Utes, little Cougars. Both both look like they're pretty good this year. Hey, let's get
Smitty's mic on. All right, let's try again. I just so you know, I cannot control your mic or my mic in the studio, so that okay, well, okay, yeah, you're good. Now a couple of it's always better when they're both right.
Hey, Hey, there's probably some of the factors involved in going Hey, we've heard enough of that guy already.
Somebody cut his mic off or something.
No, it's a much more nuanced, you know, the explanation one that will leave off air for today. But you're you're a man of the community. We got both b y U and Utah footballer concerned.
Oh hey, I've been to the games the last few games at home, and went to the game the other night and and uh, you know, just you know, I thought Arizona just outplayed them. You know, they they What they really did to me for me was that Arizona every time they had a critical third down play, they made the play. And you have to give them credit for that. They they went out and got it. I thought I didn't think it was something you know, so called that the that the you gave away a lost
as much as Arizona came and took it. From him, and so you have to give him credit. They they they just played better. Uh and and b y U is off to a tremendous start and uh the quarterback is really it seems like he's settling in And and they've had a couple of close calls, but they but they've been good enough to to make them again make
the plays when they had to make him. In football, a lot of times it comes down to one or two critical plays or or a key turnover, you know, in the second half of the game.
And and uh uh.
But they're both fun to watch, and it's fun to to see how this season evolves, you know, with the whole cam rising uh Isaac Wilson thing and and uh and and what's gonna happen as we get into uh through the month of October and where they're both sitting uh in in uh and set up for the big showdown in early November up at Rice Ecles between the Cougars and the Utes.
I wanted to kick the tires with you on this topic because you know Donovan Mitchell in a way that the rest of us just don't. I mean, you were with the team when you drafted him. You were there at the start. You watched his evolution and I was over there. But on the radio side, you don't have the same access obviously as you do on the player of personnel side. And whenever Donovan speaks, folks around here seemed to glom on to what he talks about.
It was the same thing with Hayward.
When Gordon bounced, everybody around here was like waiting for him to say something, but ultimately he never said until he retired, and I get the deal.
You know that, so do you.
What Donovan said yesterday during Cleveland Media Day caught a lot of attention around here because he said, I love it here. I feel a connection to the city. I don't mind cold weather. I know how to dress for winter. And honestly, if you close your eyes, it was back during his rookie year what he said those things about Utah, right, And.
So that's the game. You're supposed to say those things.
Now we could get into like you know, New York didn't want him and now they don't need him. Brooklyn's rebuilding the Knicks at Jalen Like, there's no way the Knicks we're going to make a play for Donovan, Mitchell and Brooklyn doesn't want to be good, So the fact of the matter is he can say whatever he wants.
He signed with Cleveland right right after it became pretty apparent that that was just the deal he could make more money stay and put That's my opinion, And I like you, I'm not up in arms about these things because you you're taught to say certain things to appease a fan base. But it was somewhat comical that if you closed your eyes, it did sound like what Donovan said about salt Lake.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, and I I'm one of those who probably feels more that coming from him that both times he spoke in that regard that he probably meant it. You know, he liked being here in Salt Lake when he first got here, and he really ingratiated himself within the community and and made a lot of stuff off the court. It took initiative to get involved in the community and did that, and I think he really, he really liked it. I think that's part of his personality.
And I think now the in Cleveland and he signed a new deal with them, Spence, Uh, I believe he probably feels genuinely that way. I think he likes where he is, you know, but certainly after right after signing an extension for one hundred and fifty million dollars, you're not gonna say, I don't really like the weather. I don't know about this traffic I gotta deal with every day.
But you know, I'll figure it out whatever.
Yeah, you know, so you know, I don't, I don't. I don't begrudge of any of that. I think he's you know, he's also got a lot of weight on his shoulders with that team. Now moving forward, they've got a new coach and Kenny Atkinson, and and you know, they hired Johnny Bryant to be on their staff. So they hired him away from the from the New York Knicks staff. And Johnny Bryant was with Donovan's workout development guy from day one on the Jazz coaching staff, and
so they have a unique relationship. And so they're reunited and Eveland and and and now he's you know, he's the big dog with a lot of young guys there, and they've got a good team and I'm sure he's excited for them to be able to start making some progress, especially as their uh as their their younger players start to get more and more experience under their belts, all.
Right to Maddy before we move over to the jazz and that's where we'll spend the rest of our time after this topic. You don't get a ton of big NBA trades in September at October, but you get some. And by the way, Donovan was traded in September. So sometimes it happens more often than not this time of year. Teams know what sort of hand they've been Dell. They're preparing for camp with their roster. But the Knicks and
the Wolves make a deal last Friday. It was a Friday news dump where Julius Randall and Dante DiVincenzo are now Minnesota bounds and Karl Anthony Towns is going going back to play for Tom Thibodeau, who had him in Minnesota. I believe for a little bit. I think I'll just I want your thoughts. Essentially, I think the talent win
is in New York's court. I have curiosities about how Tom's gonna handle that rotation, because it will be I believe Kat and don ob Hart, Bridges and Bronson, and that's a team with some great wing defenders, but not a lot of size and a center that doesn't board great for his size. I mean, Cat can do a lot, But what do you make of this? Both both sides? Randall Devincenzo Minnesota bound Cat heads to New York.
Yeah, I think it's uh New York is shoring up the center position. Of course, they lost Isaiah Hartenstein uh in the in the offseason as a free agent Oklahoma City.
You know they they're the Robinson kid. Who's who's who's.
Got some talent and can affect winning some nights at the NBA level. Uh, he's hard to He's been hard for them to count on because of his injury. His he seems to always be in and out, in and out, and so you can't count on his availability. So if you're gonna be somebody a team that feels like you having a legitimate chance to make some kind of extended run in the spring, then you need somebody that you can count on more and more consistently during the course
of the season. And I think that was an impetus for the Dicks to make the move to get an All Star caliber player in Karl Anthony Towns at a position where they needed some stability and needed a main guy, and and they got one from Minnesota. It always seemed like Rudy Gobert and and Towns were kind of bumping into each other. I mean, they're both natural centers. They
tried to play Towns at the four. They had, you know, some success with it, right and but it always felt like it was a square pagan a round hole as far as they all line lineup, was concerned. And now that frees up, they're spacing a little bit more. They get Randall in there, and and Randall is a great
mid post score who can bring them some offense. You know, you know, you lose a lot of offense in that regard, but you have a little bit better lineup, I think in terms of how your your your starting five is structured for Minnesota. And then you add Devincenzo, who's one of the top five three point shooters last year in the league and can certainly help you space the floor with the other shooters they have, especially with Edwards now
emerging as the main guy in the league. So I think it's one of those trade spens that for me, when I saw it, I kind of looked at it for a few minutes, kind of thought about it. Looked at a few stats, a few things, and thought, yeah, yeah, it makes sense for both teams. You know, I don't think any either team was trying to get the upper hand. I think both teams are doing something that they felt made sense for their group and how they're currently set up.
And they both made the moves with an eye toward feeling like we can be half a step better with what we're trying to do if we can make this kind of move. And I think that's where they both feel at this time.
So let's move over to the jazz now.
I want to start here Howard Beck from The Ringer, formerly of The New York Times, formally.
Of Well Everywhere Sports Illustrated.
Howard not keep a job? Is that what you're telling me?
Howard might be my favorite NBA writer.
I'm surprised he's never stayed in one place, but he's landed on his feet, as he does every time one company lets him go.
No, he's very good at what he does, and.
Every year he writes what he calls the Clarity Index. Okay, so what that is is not necessarily a composite ranking of NBA teams. It's Howard's opinion on what they are trying to do currently, and with some NBA teams, it's really easy to understand what they are trying to do. The Knicks obviously are all in now. They're trying to win, and we could go down the list of teams that are serious about winning, teams that are not, and teams that are obvious about not being serious about winning. Here's
what he says about the Jazz quote. And now for the Jazz, they might be the most confusing of all. A team that Jettiston It's two All stars two years ago, isn't good enough to make the playoffs, isn't bad enough to have a high draft pick. They could have dealt lowry market in a dozen times by now, but they instead gave him an extension that makes him trade ineligible
until till next summer. They're neither trying to win, nor are they trying to lose the epitome of a franchise with an identity crisis.
What's the Richard Smith take on that?
Well, I think that what they've you know, the first two years of this so called retooling or rebuilding or tear down or whatever however you want to label it. I can see where people fans, writers, media people would be confused because they saw that they were having some modicum of success early in each of the seasons and then went ahead at the trade deadliner traded the you
know guys who are helping them to do that. But I think those are things that that that they saw as ways of trying to shore up uh their their draft stockpile and trying to get trying to figure out where they actually were as a team. Now I think that they have they have a commitment to playing their
young guys. So whether you like that or not, whether that's gonna mean more losses or the same number of wins, I don't know, but I think it's gonna I think it's gonna be hard for them to have any level of success at least this coming season in any consistent fashion because they it seems like from what I understand, they're gonna play a lot of their young guys a lot of minutes, and they're gonna roll with what's going on, and if that yields fewer wins and they get closer
to the lottery land and all that, I think that's that's probably okay with them. I do think the marketing thing, you know adds a little wrench in there, But I do think that if you're trying to build a team, when you find a guy and you can get a guy and then you can hold on to him, uh and someone at his level, he's an all star level player, he's right in his prime. He wants to be here
and for them to lock him up. For me, that made a lot of sense because you know, whether that translates to wins and losses or we're not going to be bad enough now or whatever.
You got.
When you get a good player like that and you can you can get him to commit to you, then you have to do that. That's the first building block. Now you got all these other young guys that you're trying to sift through. You know, it's like the guy and it's like the old uh uh guy mining for
gold spence in the river. He gets the big the big sifter out and he gets all the dirt in it and he starts shuffling it around and he's hoping he has a gold nugget or two uh in that when all the dirt, dirt and the and the silk goes away. And that's that's what the jazz are doing. Now they're trying to figure out, Okay, we got all these young guys. We're gonna see who can play, who can't play. We're gonna see who we like, who we don't like. We're gonna see who the coach thinks can
can get something done down the road. And that's where we're at right now. And in the meantime, marketing will be our star player and whether he affects winning uh to any level that that that adversely affects their lottery UH situation, that's something that they'll deal with, you know,
as they go along. But you have to keep good players when you have them, although that you know, again that goes against what the current group decided to do a couple of years ago when they had a lot of good players and got rid of all of them, But that's what they decided to do. So now this is the new iteration of just what they're going through to try and build the team that they think at some point can be sustainable down the road.
So give me your best guess on how this is going to go, because I often look at the Vegas over unders where the guys in Vegas are pretty accurate as far as you know, predicting how the season is going to go, and history will tell you that they know what they're doing. So they have the consensus over runner for the Jazz is twenty nine point five. So Vegas is telling us the Jazz are gonna win about
thirty games. Okay, so you know, initially, at first glance, that is problematic if you want, if you want to believe that the Jazz need to do everything they can to have draft capital to take your aley. Cooper Flagg, who it appears as of now will be the number one pick, and you always point out and then we'll see, right like everybody seems to believe he's one of these
generational pieces. No one ever knows Wembanyama Lebron. There are exceptions where it feels like, all right, just take the dude, because he's gonna be that guy. We'll see if Cooper Flagg is. People that do this for a living believe that he is in a way that I don't do it for a living. So the teams they have below the Jazz are the Hornets, the Bulls, the Raptors, the Pistons,
the Nets, the Blazers, and the Wizard. So that's seven teams that Vegas is telling us is worse than the Jazz putting the Jazz at eight Now lottery odds have been flattened, as we've talked about, So even if you go all in on losing, you're not gonna get one asked Detroit and Xanik at their media availability on Friday of last week, basically alluded to the fact that we have a lot of young players that we like, but the only way for us to know who they are
is for them to get playing time. So does that indicate we're going to see starting lineup, a rotation all of these young players. What does this mean for Clarkson and Sexton and marketing in John Collins? I mean, Lowry's going to start and play, as my guess, but how is this gonna look trying to get the young players some minutes and experience while you still have some proud, highly paid vets on your roster.
Yeah, well, I wouldn't be surprised if one or more of those guys were on the move, you know, between now in February. I mean, if you're gonna go all in with the young guys and you're gonna try and sift through and see, you know, his Collier a real NBA level point guard. Is Keyante George more of a scoring two off the bench than he is a lead
point guard? Or can he play point guard? Are we gonna let him have a lot of those minutes like they were the second half of last year and to see what kind of development he he brings to the table. Ken Hendrix, you know whose body looks much better now than it did six months ago. He's put on some off season muscle and and he's starting to mature into his body. Will he be able to uh uh give
you some impactful minutes going into the season. The Filipowski kid they got in the early second round, you know, might be a steal in terms of having a guy who could at least come in and be a rotation guy and actually give you some minutes and get and be like an all around type player. It'll be interesting
to see his development. So I I do think that the jazz uh powers that be looking at it and saying, Okay, we got all these guys, now, the young guys, Now, we got to figure out who can play, who we want, who we who we want to move on from. So they're going to be doing all of that. I I mean the older guys, whether it's Clarkson, whether it's Collins,
Sexton is is. I like Sexton, He's young enough, you know, he still should be considered one of the young guys to me, but particularly clark AND's, uh, Clark's and Collins. I would be surprised if they were still on the roster come the end of February, just because I think they're guys who you know. Clarkson you can move. I think a little bit easier because his number isn't as
big now. It went from twenty four to fourteen, So now he becomes a guy that teams that are in the hunt, you know, after the first of the year they need a scorer off the bench, you know, becomes attractive to teams like that. Collins would be a little bit tougher because of his big number. So that may be someone at some point where they if they can't move them, they have to some kind of a buyout agreement or something. But it just seems to me that
they're going to go in with the young guys. And if you're going to go in, then you gotta play them and play them and play them and just see how it falls and who's showing up as the season goes on.
All right, it's Manny.
Before I said you loose, I want to ask you a question, and we alluded to this a little bit last year. And you take us into the the mindset of roster construction and what this process looks like.
And you know, I remember Dennis Lindz.
He always had his five year plan on his whiteboard, and you know, looking ahead to the future, and what does it look like when our best players are in their prime juxtaposed to what the other teams in our conference look like. There's no perfect way to do this, and there's no one way to do this. I understand that there are a bunch of different approaches. I think there are some that are tried and true and others
that are a little bit more unproven. I'll just ask you, generally speaking, does the glut of young, really good teams that are far ahead of the Jazz change the timeline?
Change the calculation? When you look at okayc not going anywhere for a while and being awesome, I could keep going, as you know, Dallas, Luca, I mean, even the Nuggets with Jokicic he's in his prime and he's gonna be good for four or five years, because for a while for me, it was like, well, Steph's gonna age, Lebron's gonna age, Duran's can age, and then Donovan rooting these guys, they'll be ready when they're done. Now the franchise decided
to pivot and make a change. What's your opinion on that. Does the glut of young, really good teams far ahead of the Jazz and the process change the way the Jazz look at this timeline.
For me, it doesn't, Spencer and and this is why, because when you are a young, good team, what's right around the corner that you're always dealing with from a management and ownership perspective is how are we going to keep these guys? Meaning who gets paid and who doesn't
get paid? When you look at it and the and the landscape of the NBA Oklahoma City, which is in a great position right now with not only good young players and a very competitive team, but also a lot of draft picks in their back pocket still so they still have a lot of room for maneuverability. But you go back a decade ago, they had the same setup with guys who were even a little bit better Okay. They drafted in successive drafts Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook.
Those three guys should still if it was a perfect NBA world from an ownership perspective, they should still be playing together in Oklahoma City and have be sitting on two, three, four championships. But it didn't work out that way. They were a good young team, they went to a finals,
and then what happens. Everybody comes to Everybody comes knocking at the door, and they want theirs, and no matter how you talk to them, and how you try and divvy it up, and how you try and massage egos and whatever it is, it rarely works the way you want it to. So guys start going out the door, one after the other. And now, of course Oklahoma City has rebuilt themselves, but none of those guys are with them.
So the guys the teams that you're relating to now that are in front of the jazz, you know, you don't know how they're gonna be able to stay together.
You don't know how it's gonna work. You have to worry about how you're building your group and how you're progressing and to what extent you want to keep that going financially and also with the personnel you have, and then what happens elsewhere you have no control over, whether it's you know that okay, see example or the one there was more recent in Brooklyn where they stacked up all the guys and those three guys played sixteen games together.
I mean, are you kidding me? I mean, when you step back and look at the history of it, you go, are you you remember when they all came together. Everybody was like, oh, those guys, they're gonna be a headache for five, six, seven years.
You know, they're gonna be running the show. And it never happened.
So so the answer to your question, the Jazz should just stay on the timeline they're on. They should do it the way they think is gonna make sense for them going down the road, and you stick to that, and you don't worry about the other people on the outside, the other teams, and you just you just go with what you believe makes the most sense to what's gonna get you to where you're trying to go in the
long run. It's tough, it's a long deal, and it doesn't guarantee you're gonna get there right but you have to have the conviction that that makes sense to you and your group, and and you go with that. And I think Larry Markinen the signing of him is the first step in that in that direction.
All right, Smitty, great to have you back. Great to see you. I have a good week and we'll chat soon, Okay, good man.
Thank you.
Richard Smith forty years with the Jazz Front Office,