Live in studio.
Our guy who's getting ready to take a trip that is making me very very jealous.
He's heading down south.
He spent some time with their friends at Black Desert Richard Smitty Smith's Smitty Happy Monday, Sir, how are.
You, Spence? Were doing great?
I'm excited to uh, to be going down to Ivans and Saint George and see the Black Desert and first time ever I'll be in an LPGA tournament, so to see the best women golfers in the world tie it up in person and see how precise they are. You know, when I watch them on TV, they just they're always in control, They got everything lined up their hands and show they you know, they're just so good at that, you know, and so excited to see that in person and see what.
It looks like.
Good Field too, right, I was thinking that they have like seven of the top ten golfers on the Lpgah.
Yeah, yeah, I think the I think the tournament if I understand it correctly, and and I don't know this for sure, but my understanding is that they've they've arranged with whoever they could get from the from the first major of the year last week in Texas, Uh to come up to this tournament and are flying them all up in private jets and said, hey, you come to the tournament.
We got you covered. Don't worry about it.
You know, we'll get you from A to B and make sure you're all situated at the at the resort, and and and and for professional golfers at any level, you know, anything you can do to to entice them, you know, to be part of your thing is you know, is a big deal. And so that's, uh, that's exciting for the for the organizers.
We had Patrick mannon on last week and I kindly offered uh to allow the plane.
No.
I kindly offered to allow me to be picked up by a private jet to go play at Black Desert, and he plightately.
Declined, Well really, yeah. I was surprised. Well, he probably declined because he thought, well, Spence is just pulling my leg. He's got his own private plane. He's just trying to say.
I can't time let alone of private plane at this point, smittie.
But I'm jealous, man. You'll have a good time, all right.
I want to start with a non NBA story, should Or Sanders slides to the fifth round of the NFL drive. And you're a guy that for four years, throughout the course of your time with the Jazz, you were in a lot of war rooms. You worked with Franken Scott and then Kevin O'Connor and Dennis Lindsay, what is the process like because clearly, and look, who know we were talking about this during the break the NFL draft media cover just full of grifters.
It's full of people that claim to.
Know what they're talking about, and the same grifters. So on Wednesday, I'm listening to all these draft experts and it's Shador's three to the Giants. It's twenty one of the Steelers. But he's not fallen out of the first round, and if he does, the Browns are right there in
the second. Nobody said fifth round. And the same grifters today are saying, well, my intel over the weekend said, well, this is why he slid that would I don't know what to believe exactly, but throughout the course of analyzing these young prospects, the interview process, what's your take when you see this precipitous slide for a player that a lot of people thought would go very early on, Well, that's.
The thing that that that's really fascinating to me about the whole Shooter Sanders thing.
And I'm just a casual NFL fan.
I follow it, you know, like anybody else sitting up in row forty five, you know, on the end zone, you know, at games.
But they you know, all the stuff leading up to it, right.
Was was him going in the top ten, you know, maybe he gets to the mid first round or something, but he's one of the top quarterback prospects. And then to fall that far from what everybody was saying, especially your guy mel Kiper, you know, was one of the loudest voices in the room about it. And that was a very interesting exchange they had towards the end of the get with the panel that he was with trying to defend himself and and and all those kinds of things.
And that's what happens when you stick your neck out like that, you know, and make predictions that that you know, you really don't quite know what's going to happen.
But but for a.
Guy like Sanders to slide all the way to the fifth fifth round from what he did in college and also what everybody was saying ahead of the draft was going to happen.
Regarding him.
It's fascinating to me because that says to me, Spence, having having worked in these kind of environments over the years, there's other things behind the scenes that no one's talking about, whether they know them or they're not aware of what they are and they can't talk about them simply because of lack of information or knowledge. But other things, whether it's you know this thing about you know that that he called half the teams ahead of time and said,
don't don't select me. He did the the Eli Manning thing that everybody forgets about.
You know, way back.
When when Eli Manning and his dad said, hey, we know we're not going to go to San Diego, so don't you know, or or you got to trade them or something, you know, uh now how it all fell out, or the John Elway thing and and all that kind of stuff way back in the day that that's unprecedented
that happening. But if you do that, then the front offices you're talking to, the organizations you're talking to, you know, they're sitting in their rooms and they're going, Hey, the guy called us and he doesn't want to play here.
Do we like him?
Enough that you know, we don't care about that because this is the process and we're responsible for our own organization and to make it better or is it is it a borderline thing where it's just not worth it and we just go to Plan B whatever, And that's why he kept sliding, sliding, sliding. And then you have the issue with you know, position and football. Obviously, there's
so many different positions. We get to our pick in the third round, Yeah, we like shud Or Sanders, but we really need a middle linebacker, and the kid from Ohio State still there, we got to take him.
And so if you went.
Over everybody's boards and draftless, you'd probably see teams that would say, oh, yeah, we like Sanders, but we had four other positions that we had to you know, take care of first before we got to that point. And so there's a lot of those those kind of a
moving parts that are involved. But something as precipitous is supposed to be in the first half of the first round to the fifth round is really saying something about people don't like his act off the court, they don't off the field, they don't like you know, all the social media stuff, they don't like the circus that surrounds him. He's not really that good to have to deal with
that stuff. I don't know, It's just there's something in that regard that I think is fascinating because at some point it'll start leaking out where teams will say, yeah, well, you know, I talked to the other four of my colleagues around the league, and we all said, why dealing with that thing, you know, because that's not worth it, you know, you know, whatever it is.
And so that to me is the fascinating part.
Now, the flip of it to me was when they showed him being selected by the Browns, and you know, you would have thought he just was the first first pick of the draft the way he reacted right, the dancing and doing the stuff, and they didn't show any any kind of you know, sulking or head down or any of that kind of stuff. So you know, if if that's the real reaction or if that's just for for you know, made for TV, as we say, or
or what have you. But they were smart and you know and saying, hey, when this happens, dude, whenever it is, you know, you can't be looking like that guy over in the corner who just broke up with his girlfriend.
You gotta you gotta make it look good. Yeah, I got it. I got it.
And it seems like he's probably savvy enough to understand that and handle it that way.
You reference the reports that Shador and his reps, whether it was Dion or what have you, contacting certain teams and saying, don't draft in, We're not gonna come. He doesn't want to play for you. Over the years that you spent with the Utah Jazz. You know, we were talking off air a little bit. There are a lot of public reports that people know about the Derek Harper's
of the World Cyclis of the World. Your former boss, Dennis Lindsay went on a podcast last year, and I actually talked to Dennis about this because I heard it, and he said, during the height of the Mitchell Gobert Conley group, he had an opportunity to make a trade for what he characterized as a star player, and the agent called Dennis and said, don't do it.
He's not coming. So you know, whether it was through the draft or whether.
It was via free agency or trades over the years, whether it was Scotty and Frank or Kevin O'Connor or Dennis lindsay, when you guys received intel that my guy's not coming, doesn't want to play, if you don't draft him, don't trade for him, don't sign him, how'd you handle it?
Well, it's always a difficult thing because, first of all, your responsibility, first and foremost is to the organization, to your ownership group, and obviously to your fans to do the best you can to put the best product out on the floor. And so you have to balance you know, what you think is going to make sense for your group, and you know what the attitude of approach, the the overall mindset of the individual is who you're going to try and add to the group. You know, nobody wants
to deal with a male content. Nobody wants to deal with somebody who you have to talk them into, you know, playing nice with the other kids in the room, like it's a you know, nobody wants to have to do that. Sometimes you have to do that. And I always call that the uh the iverson effect, meaning like how good is the player and how much does he bring to your group to offset what the headaches and and all the other issues are, you know, off the basketball court,
and so how do those balance each other? And and and you call it the Iverson effect because Alan Iverson in his career was such a good player and so impactful and so dynamic on the floor that the people I know for a fact who had to work with him all during his career said, yeah, it was a lot of heavy lifting and there was a lot of pain on our part, but we just had to figure it out from day to day because he's so good.
So how much of that is in the equation? And so you know, when when agents call you and they say, hey, look, my guy doesn't really want to come to the Salt Lake. It doesn't want to do this, you know, it's always a long discussion because because you're trying to sell yourself, but at the same time you have to realize, you know, what, how is this going to impact our overall group. We're trying to add in that regard to the group, We're
trying to improve our situation as it currently stands. If we bring in a guy who doesn't want to be here, and a guy who says ahead of time, hey, I don't want to come, but if I have to come, I'm not going to be happy about it. Then you have to deal with that. So how does that going to impact the rest of the group. So there's a fine balancing line there, Spence, because because you have to do your business to what you feel is going to
help your group. But at the same time, what the business you do, do you think then it's going to be some kind of detriment to your group because of the attitude that's that's coming with it. So it's always a fine a fine balancing act that that's that's never there's no blueprint for every single one in that regard is its own entity and comes with its own set of challenges.
And it's tough because you know, look, Ronnie Seychlely wasn't a chem olaju on, but he would have. I don't know what that team would have looked like, but that's exactly what you needed. And the player Dennis was talking about to make the trade to kind of supplement the growth that Rudy and Donovan he told me off the record, and it would have been a great addition.
That's what you needed.
How do you how do you balance that where it's like, look, I know you don't want to come here, but then on the other side, you're like, but if you do, we got a shot to win the thing. I mean, do you have a conversation with a player or is it is it black and white? If they're gonna be a malecontend and they're not an Iverson type talent, you say, okay, go kick go kick rocks.
Yeah.
Well it's again, every single one is handled differently, and you have to take in all all facets of what uh the situation is, all the different areas that you're that you're involved in there in terms of skill ability, talent, attitude, uh, work ethic, all those kinds of things, uh, and then figure in you.
You have to know what your group is about.
So then you have to figure out, well, if we if we can do something like this, maybe the guys in our group that are here can win that person over. Okay, but it's really a sticky situation when when it comes up, and it's not always uh, it's never the most comfortable because you always feel like we're trying to do what's best for our group. You know, this guy we think can help us, this guy says he doesn't want to be here. Whatever it is. Now we have to balance that, like,
well do we still want him. Do we still try and make that work because that's our job and the responsibility we have to the organization to try and do these things if and when they become available. Or do we just say, oh, it's too much work, forget it, We're going to plan B and we move on, which is it may not be in the best interest of the organization. So then you feel like, well, I'm not doing the job I'm supposed to do for our group. So it's always it's always a balance. It's always juggling
and trying to figure out what really makes sense. Is the addition going to be better than the subtraction of not doing it at the end of the day.
That's always the balance and the juggling act you have.
I can remember the year Paul Pierce was coming out of Kansas and I was doing some work with the Knicks during their draft prepping process, and the Knicks had Paul Pierce as their number one ranked player that year. Famously fell to tend to Boston and had a Hall of Fame career and won a championship with the Celtics. The most famous jazz draft story of a player who slid that benefited you guys, I think, is Carl right Whenever I look at that eighty five draft, that was
a stack draft. Ewing went and one, of course, but players like Xavier McDaniel, Chris Molin, Dell with Shrimp, Charles Oakley, even a player like Waymon Tisdale, you know, John Conkak. That was a good draft. But Carl slides, you guys at thirteen and I've heard Frank tell the story a million times, which is a great story. And then, of course I was a kid, but I remember him getting up to the podium and saying, we're drafted a mailman.
So I want you to talk us through what that was like to watch Carl slide when you guys had him analyze as one of the top I don't know two or three players. Any other stories as well come to mind about players that slid to you guys that you benefited.
Yeah, well, well Carl, you know it is obviously the biggest one there was. He was projected during that draft to go somewhere between four and seven, and everybody believed that he would be going no later than seven to Dallas because he was from that area and it was going to be a regional type pick. And and the people in that area that part of the country knew him well from Louisiana Tech. And and then when when Dallas took I think it was Bill Garnett.
Is that who was delashremp Was it Delas Trump?
Dallas traded with Cleveland according to the draft have up. So Mullen went seven a Golden State, Dellas Shrimp went eight, Oakley went nine.
Okay, yeah that was and then and so he started sliding. And part of the slide, as we understood at that time, and I think it is still the case, is that, you know, looking back on it was just that there were teams that are a little bit scared off because his his college coach wasn't his best advocate in that regard.
He had some some things that he wasn't quite sure about, you know, uh, how Carl worked and and and what he would bring to a group, and so he didn't he didn't do the best selling job for his player and that guard. So that scared off some teams, and
he started sliding. And then I know Kenny Green from Wake Forest was taking number twelve by by Washington just before the Jazz and and I remember Scott saying Scott Layton saying to his dad at that moment in time on the draft stage, Hey, we we got we gotta take the kid from Louisiana Tech. And and Frank said, well, what's the matter with him? I thought he's supposed to go like top five, six and now he's at thirteen. Something's wrong? And Scott said, not that I know of.
I haven't heard. I haven't heard anything. I'm not we don't have any intel in that regard. And Frank was like, are you sure that he doesn't have a bum knee or he didn't have some kind of legal problem we're not aware of or something, because something's going on. And Scott said, no, I don't. I don't know if there's anything. We don't have anything. He said, but he is good enough, he's talented enough that we just have to take him
and then we have to figure it out. And Frank said, okay, I I hope you're right, and that was that was the deal, and then we go and then Frank makes the call, and then and then I do remember the subsequent press conference talking about it, and someone asked him about you, you know, think he's gonna come in and help you with your scoring, and.
Frank said, well, we don't have a promise scoring.
We have Adrian Dantley, and we have John Drew, and we have Daryl Griffith, and we have Ricky Green who's kind of a scoring point guard sort of, he said, And then you know, we have them a developing Mark Eaton, and we have a young thorough Bailey. He goes, but we're a third third to the last in the NBA and rebounding, so we hope that he can this guy from Louisiana Tech, Carl Malone, can come in and help us with our rebounding and some of our defense and stuff.
And then if he scores eight or ten points a game, that'll be a bonus for us, and you know, thirty five thousand points.
Later or whatever.
You know, So that's you know, and Spence, you have a million stories like that where where you can take a guy or work with a guy and think, well, we can put him in this hole and we think he can do such and such here, and then the guy ends up doing something else. It's far beyond that that you're going, well, I didn't know he could do that, you know, And then you look like the smart guy
in the room. As Frank would always readily say when people said, oh, John Stockton, how'd you know he's gonna be such a one of the best Poincauds of all time? And Frank would always say, well, first of all, if we knew he was gonna be that, we would have tried to trade up and get him in the top three or whatever, you know, which we didn't. And you know that that's just you know, there's a million of those draft day stories. You know, probably the biggest one
about guys not wanting to come or whatever. It happened even before that with the Jazz in eighty three with Dominicu Wilkins and the Jazz had the third pick and they took him and he was he would have been a main cog in the Jazz group at that time, and he simply said, I'm not I'm not moving to the Lake City. I don't want to come. So you
got to figure something out. And that's when the Jazz said, well, then we will figure out some other thing, and they ended up making the trade that brought them John Drew and and and and Freeman and and some other stuff. But it was but that was a big deal because you're you're talking about a talented guy who went on to obviously an All Star and in the Hall of Fame career, and Dominique Wilkins and and uh so those are the things you have to deal with if if
somebody's gonna stand their ground. Now, see, Dominic Wilkins had a little bit of, uh, you know, leverage in that regard because he even though it's not as prevalent as it is today, he was standing on the idea that hey, I'm not gonna come if if if you're not gonna move, make a move for me, I'll just go play in Italy, or I'll go play in Spain. I'll make a living somehow doing that. Well that's that's that, that was the information we had. But but at the same time, but
then you took somebody like a Shador Sanders. We bring it back to there should or Sindis doesn't have anywhere else to go. He's not going to play football in China or play football in Europe or whatever. So he wants to be a quarterback at the professional level. He's got one place to do it, and that's the NFL.
So that's what's intriguing to me. If some of the stories are accurate that they were calling teams saying, don't draft, because I don't know why you would want to cut out anybody who may help you to get to where you want to be professionally.
That eighty four draft, De la Jouan won, of course, Jordan famously. Three after Portland goes Booie Barkley at five, Charles Barkley at five, Alvin Robertson, Otis Thorpe, Kevin Willis, and John John Stocked and Michael Cage too, a great rebounder.
That was a great draft.
YEP, before we catch break, one more draft question, and I don't want to catch off guard here, but is there a memory of a player that you guys passed on that slid passed you went past some other teams that was drafted later on, and you look back and you say, oh, I think Tony Parker, Ral Lopez. I mean, was there was there a player that comes to mind that you guys wanted passed on went on to play really well?
I mean, you know you big up a good one with with Raoul Lopez and and Tony Parker. Those are the two guys we were zoing and on at the time. And and uh, you know, Raoul had an unfortunate knee injury right after we drafted him, uh playing in the world what's now known as the World Couple World Basketball Championships and in Indianapolis, and he had never been hurt up until then. In fact, he had been a real
durable young player and was really good. And the question at the time was we didn't know if Tony Parker was really a true point guard or if he was more of a combo guard that that maybe wouldn't be what you what you wanted at that time. And of course we're we're coming off at the end of of one of the greatest point guards of all time with John Stockton, so we're looking for a guy who we think fits that mold of of a past first, past second guy, and Raoul Lopez was was all of that.
And we had a lot of calls about Raoul right after the draft, about teams going, hey, you're gonna keep the Lopez kid because we're interested if if you're gonna stash him or do something else or whatever, and you know, so that was one that that still hurts today because you know, I think I think Raoul was all set up to be, you know, a really top level point guard at the NBA level and would have helped the Jazz a lot in that transition period.
And and but.
Then again, if we have Raoul Lopez and he's healthy and he's doing what he did early in his career in in in Spain and in Europe, then we might not have had Darren Williams because we might have said, oh, we got Raoul Lopez.
We don't We don't need to pick it on Derek, you know.
So all the all those things are domino type effects spender that are sometimes fascinating to look back and I go, oh, what if if this happened?
Then what about that? You know, the old sliding doors theory.
Sure, it's always so easy because every NBA front office has a lot of misses, a lot of misses. It's always so easy to say, oh, I think it was Alec Burks instead of Kawhi or Clay or something like that.
Like it's easy to do that.
You know, you swing and miss, and then if you're gonna be critical of that, you have to say, well, Donovan late, lottery, go bear late.
First.
The crazy thing, smitty before you catch a break is the majority of the best players that you guys drafted, they weren't your highest picks, right. It was the karl in the late lottery, and John in the later first and Donovan late lottery, and go Beart and Carlinko in the second round in mill stll Right, like a lot of the best players we've had here have been great value picks later on.
Yeah, well it's all to do with your scouting and the way you evaluate personnel. Andre Carlanco at twenty five, but he was also the third.
We had three first round.
Picks that years, and we were trying to get we were trying to move Scott Laden was trying to move you know, at least one, if not two, of those picks, and we couldn't move them because other teams knew, you know that, well they're not gonna take three first round guys, which we ended up doing just because you know, well they were offering us pennies on the dollar in trade scenarios.
They said, well, we are I gonna do that. We'll just say so.
So it was actually Dave Friedman, you know, in our in our group, who you know, said, you know, propose the idea of what if we take the Carolinko kid and we just leave him in uh in Russia because
he's under contract for another couple of years. And that really, in my opinion, you know, started or was part of that wave of drafting guys who you knew were under contract overseas and just leaving them there for a year or two or three while their contracts ran out and let them develop over there where you didn't have to pay them and start that that clock on a contract. But guys like Paul Millsap who was drafted forty six, Uh, well Williams was drafted forty six, uh, Jeff hornisec forty seven,
you know, Mono Jenobili fifty two. All these guys, you know, guys that you you can find good players anywhere in the draft. Uh, but you just have to you have to do the homework. You have to you have to dig into the soil and really get your hands dirty, and then and then have the conviction of what you're seeing, uh,
that that you think makes sense for your group. And so sometimes sometimes you get you get guys like that who can play, and they're they're undervalued and uh and you just have to say, well, we should have taken him one of the with our first round pick instead of our second round pick.
The ninety nine draft wasn't great. Elton brand was the number one overall pick. Steve Francis at two had a good career, Baron Davis at three, Lamar owed him at four. You know, Gordy talks about how uniquely talented Lamar was coming out of college while he's herbiak Rip Hamilton, Sean merri and Andre Miller, Trajan Langdon Cory mcghetty, Frederick Weiss, Ye New York Knick fans were not our test. Ak at twenty four was probably the best value pick of the entire draft, to be honest.
With Yeah, and he and even at that time, I think most people would have most NBA people would have said, well, he's one of the more talented guys in the draft. But again, the teams that are drafting, usually especially Spence, when you're drafting early, that usually means it's because you haven't had a good season, and if you haven't had a good season, you're looking for some kind of immediate help.
And Andre Andre was smart because it was actually Andre and his agent both both thought, Hey, even though he was nineteen at the time, he said, no, I want to and this is this is this is very unique and interesting.
He had said to his agent.
His agent are, well, you might not get drafted until later in the first round if you stay in the draft. But if you if you wait a year or two and you develop and play more in Russia, then we might get you high and the draft. And Andre said to him, well, if I go now and I get drafted by a team later in the first round, that means more than likely I'm being drafted to a better team.
And so I would rather have the opportunity to play with a better team when I go to the NBA, and I'm happy to play out my contract, which is another two years in Russia, which is what he did. So the Jazz drafted him, left him in Moscow for two more years playing for Chesca, and then when he was twenty one, he came over and he was ready
to go, you know, compete at the NBA level. But a lot of guys, a lot of teams aren't going to take Andre, you know, at eight or ten or twelve in that scenario, because it's like.
Well he's not coming for two years, right, Well, we need.
Help now, because if we don't get help now, I'm out of a job next year if we lose again, Right, I mean that's all yeah, that's all the way the thinking goes. So so that was kind of aque unique situation with Carolinka the Jazz.
All Right, it's madey some rough news and you just feel so bad because so much hope. When the Milwaukee Bucks traded for Damian Lillard to pare him next to Giannis and you know, I was watching it live and when it was a non contact injury as we were discussing off air, and when I saw the look on Dame's face, I said, he knows that he just just did something. And I hate to be the sports soccer radio guy that pretends he's a doctor, right, so I
always wait until the actual diagnosis. MRI this morning tour and left achilles tendon and Dame turns thirty five this offseason.
I hate to say it might be it, but it might be it. So what do you make of the news?
Well, that's such a a tough injury for him, And because we all know how hard Damian Lillard works to get himself in the best shape possible and to be the ultimate competitor.
He's always been that.
That's how he's gotten to this stage of his career, Spencer being an All NBA player, All Star, part of the seventy fifth anniversary team. It's all out of his hard work and determination. And then when you watch that sequence and you see how how silly it was the movie made to what happened to him, you just feel
for him. The issue going forward, not not just for him in his career, but also for the Milwaukee Bucks organization is if they get end up, say they get knocked out in this this first round of the playoffs, you know they still have Damian Lillard under contract for two more years at like in the mid fifties six six, and then you got Giannis as well, who's making a
similar type money for the next three years. And so you're you're really strapped as an organization without having you know, one of your best players on the court and having to.
Pay that kind of money.
But it's not just the money you're paying to him, it's the fact that it keeps you from adding other guys to replace him. And so so that really is a is such a such a heartren during a thing for him individually and also for their organization, because that's that's a big, big pill to swallow right now in terms of what they're trying to get done.
Let me ask you about where we stand with this Lakers Timberwolves series. You know, I don't know if JJ was trying to send a message to the front office, like I have no depth on this team, but I found it an ear to be a very irresponsible coaching move to play all five of those guys every minute in the second half, because what we saw, Smidi is the Timberwolves are now three to one and on the precipice of eliminating the Lakers. We'll see if they can
get back into it. But in the fourth quarter, Lebron didn't score. In the fourth quarter, Luca's legs went Dorian Finney Smith had an open dunk and he shorten armed it because he was tired. Now, look, Jared Vanderbilt, who we had here, gave Vincent Jordan, Jordan Goodwin.
It's not a deep team.
I'm not saying that it is, but Minnesota's got depth, and I think that depth ultimately proved to be the nail on the coffin. An ant was great, But what do you make of the way JJ elected to go about that coaching decision to play all of those five guys every minute in the second half.
Yeah, you know, you know what that is for me, Spence, that that is a rookie coach who hasn't coached before at all, even as an assistant coach, comes in. You know, Okay, he played in the league. Okay, he's a smart guy. Okay he knows his team. All those things are are true.
But when you get in the heat of the moment and you're in a you're down two to one, you're on the road, you're competing, you're in the game, you've got a lead, you you lose the lead, you come back, grab the lead, back and forth game one of those
pivotal games in a series. You know that that is a that is a to me, is a rookie move where the guy where he was not comfortable subbing out the guys who were on the floor, who were keeping the team in the game for fear that the game is going to quickly slip away in some ten to two run by the other team. And so I just got to keep my guys out there, and I got to try and use my timeouts where I can to
get them blows. But that's you know that to me is h is someone who's not used to making those decisions, and they're they're not really comfortable with the guys they've got, which, by the way, is probably true.
He's probably right.
And the fact that I don't know if I can count on the guys who I would put in to be able to hold this in on the road in such a pivotal game against a tough team that's got all their their weapons out there, And so that's that's
a tough deal for him. And look, it came down to a player too, right, So none of nobody would be talking about this if Lebron makes a three, if Luca makes some game saving play at the end, and they go, how great was that that those guys pulled it out and now they're back in the series, going
home and all those those kind of things. So so that's one of those things you make your roll with what your gut tells you, and his gut told them I think we can get to the finish line with our guys playing the way they are, and and it just didn't work out. And the other the other guy you know in the horse race, beat you by a nose at the at the finish line.
Teams are up three to one win ninety percent of the time in pro basketball.
So it's it's a tough ask.
I suppose if there's a team that can do it, it's a team that has Lebron James and Luka Doncis for three to one Minnesota.
Do you think it's you think it's Curtains. Do you think that cup?
No?
No, because look, Lebron's been here before. In fact, he's been here, you know, on on the the in a different circumstance where he was down three to one and had to go on the road for Game five and one game five, went home in won Game six, came back in one Game seven on the road, and the famous Kyrie Irving three pointer at the end of Game seven to win the championship for the Cleveland Cavaliy. So so anytime, Yeah, And I've always said this, Spence, I'm
a big Lebron James fan. You can say whatever you want about how he you know, manipulates things and how he's got He's put himself in a position where if he's healthy and now if Doncic is healthy, and if they can play the way they played yesterday and they can get any kind of help, then I don't put it past them to be able to do it. Because they're playing game five at home right then they just have to go back and scrap out a game six somehow.
And you never know how how that's gonna go. Right. Each each game is really its own series.
If you look at games, you know, an individual game chopped into quarters or even chopped into segments from time out to time out, if you can get in a flow. And and you know, they get into game six in Minnesota and Anthony Edwards picks up early foul trouble, and and you know Rudy Gobert, you know, you know, tweaks his ankle or something. You know, blah blah blah. Anything
can happen. So I don't anything any team that has James and Doncic healthy and playing the way they're capable of play, and I don't put anything back.
I never bet against those.
Guys before we get to tonight.
And then I'll set you loose because I know you got to hit the road so you can go down to the golf tournament. And those of us that are humble, working men of the people will continue to go on.
Day to day, but you do your thing. I don't know that I've ever asked you. There was always this narrative.
So JJ Reddick and most teams that play against a Rudy go Bart led team like to go small. And you know, they're trying to isolate Luca on Rudy every time they can, and they're trying to make Rudy guard on the perimeter.
And we saw that happen here with Quinn.
And you know that Clippers series where Terrence Man has a career night, Maxi Kleiba hits a bunch of threes for Dallas. And there's always been this debate about what's fair to say of you know, when it comes to the criticisms of Rudy in a playoff series and the team goes small, does the coach have to sit him?
Now Minnesota as now is Reed, who's been awesome.
And I think at times Quinn just elected to be stubborn and play Rudy no matter what, no matter what the other team was gonna do, because Rudy was so important to what you guys did defensively. What's fair to say in that conversation the space of this team goes small.
What do we do with Gobert.
Yeah, well, I'm probably the wrong guy to ask that question to you because I'm in the I'm in the Rudy Gobert camp. As far as how he affects the game, what he brings to Yeah, you want to you want to isolate him out on a wing against a guy he's gonna get beat. You know, it doesn't matter who the ball handler is. That's not the way to play it.
You know, taking him out late in games, you take away a lot of stuff that he does, you know that isn't in the so called public eye or the glare of the spotlight at that moment, like when you do a switch and he gets isolated out. Okay, that's that's not That's not the way to play it. That's not the way if you're smart to do it, if
your team. But okay, teams have done it. But you know, he's too valuable player to me to take off the floor because he does a lot of other things, not just within the scheme of the thing of what's going on at the moment, but just in terms of his approach and attitude and what he wants to do for the group. He's not out there, you know, being Anthony
Edwards trying to say, hey, everybody, look at me. Watch me put it between my legs ten times and spin and do this and make some you know, wild fall away you know, you know, jump shot or something, you know, so hero play. He's out there to try and help you as a group, to try and have success and win the game in whatever way he can. So you know, I'm I'm the wrong guy because you know those things.
I think it amplified, especially a playoff time. There's a reason you won, you know, sixty plus games during the regular season with him in the starting lineup and him doing stuff and okay, you're getting a playoff series. There's other adjustments you can make that that don't put him in that kind of a space that that's that's not advantageous for him and therefore not advantageous for your group. And that's up to coaches in terms of how they game plan that and how they adjust to that.
All right, final thing, let's get a thought on tonight.
We'll leave Calves heat to the side because well, you know it's three to zero. But Golden State Houston Jimmy Butler went through shoot around this morning. He is officially a game time decision. Steph had a classic Steph game to get them Game three. It's still so fun to watch Steph when he's doing stuph things, even at this age. Houston a fun story, and I actually thought because of their athleticism, their strength, and their length on the perimeter, that Golden State was gonna have an issue.
Now they still might. It's only two to one.
But before I set you loose, so you can get down to st George, what are your thoughts on this series?
What do you think happens tonight?
Yeah, I think that Golden State will play play the same way. You know, I don't know if I don't know what Butler's situation is health wise. Obviously they're better off with him on the floor than without him. If he doesn't play, then that just means Curry has to have another type of game, which he's capable of doing at home, especially you know, to be able to to uh to keep them in the lead in that series.
But you know, Houston's a young, scrappy, tough nosed, hard nosed defensive team, and so you're gonna see them getting added because.
Obviously they don't they don't want it.
They're gonna have the specter of falling behind three games to one. Uh, if they can't figure out a way to win the games, you're gonna see them scrapping and clawing.
And and maybe that.
Means that Steph Curry spends a lot of time on the free throw line, which would be advantageous for Golden State because because he's almost automatic there. But but I expect it to be a tough game, another tough game, and I expected to, you know, come down the last two minutes and and who makes a play, who misses a shot, who steps in and takes a charge? You know what, ever it is, let's just hope we don't have an ending like we had in the Detroit Knicks game yesterday.
Yeah, wasn't it.
It was? It was a foul.
But the NBA is wrong in not having an ability to be able to look at something like that at the end of the game.
That rule.
I'm sure they'll discuss it this some of There's got to be some way of dealing with the situation like that, especially when it when it's such the stakes the way they are right at that moment, and you're saying, well, the whistle wasn't blown. There wasn't a call made. So therefore we have nothing to review and we have nothing to discuss that that that just isn't right.
Some something's got to change in that.
But I'm just glad that the next one there you go.
I know you and your boy Tony Jones, I know you're.
You're all behind well Porter some kind of you know, where's Porter from Oakley from?
What is he doing for the next because.
Come on, would you like to order yourself young?
He has People have fair points when they bring up my the randomness of my my sports allegience.
It's not just random. You also made horrible choices. Like you were a free agent, you went Mets, Nicks and Cowboys.
I know.
Yeah, it's a lot of losing lately.
See see he's a bandwagon guy.
I could tell no, no, he's he's say he should be more of a bad like it's just a broken bandwagon Mets, Cowboys, Knicks.
I mean that is decades of just suffering.
Yeah all right, my friend, I know you got to get gone. Have have a good time down there, Send some pics, enjoy it's gonna be fun.
It'd be great. Have a good time. Yeah, we'll miss you.
Everybody will see you next, we