He's the pride of Norwich, Connecticut and an adopted son of Salt Lake City. After forty years with the UTAZ, there's no one better to talk some hoops. Richard Smitty Smith is back on the Drive on ESPN seven hundred.
Because the fans are used to coming to a game, no matter what it is, their son's high school game or the college game, whoever it is, and trying to watch your team put best its best foot forward to try and win the game you're playing. And the Jazz didn't do that this year. Obviously, they held out guys who were healthy. They got fined along the way by the NBA for doing that. It's just it's just not a very good look to me for any organization that puts themselves in that position.
They're not the only ones who were doing it, you know.
Several other teams were in that same kind of race, and the Jazz happened to win it by getting the worst record. So we'll see what happens on May twelfth when the lottery balls come up and and and see how that that plays out for them.
Some dynamite analysis, I'm not sure who that was. It soundedect Richard Smith, Well, May twelfth came and went yesterday, and the lottery balls did not fall in the favor of the Utah Jazz.
Now, I will remind you the Jazz.
Ended up with a pick that they were most likely to get based off the percentages, even though the reaction from folks around here is that the whole thing is rigged and the fixes in. But Richard Smith is live in studio during the four o'clock hour. My goodness, Smitty, one of the most truly one of the most consequential nights that the NBA has had in a long time for several reasons. But of course we'll start with your
reaction to the Utah Jazz. I'll say, falling to five, they could not fall any further than five, but they fell as far as they could.
Where you at with it today, Yeah, well that's that's.
Uh, that's what the numbers of your mathematician, that's what you would expect, you know, would most probably happened. Of course, you and I have bantered about this all all season long, Spence, and and you were in the tank group. No, no, no, no, I'm just I'm just reviewing what the facts are. And you know, people can take it for what they will.
You know, I've I've said all along and I'm not saying this in any way to pat myself on the back or anything, but I'm not just I just can't get on board with the whole idea that you try and manipulate the system, or, in my opinion the way I view it, you try and game the system to try and get an artificial advantage for something that's that's a professional sport where people are paid a lot of money and trained to try and perform at the highest level that they can night in, the night out, and
the jazz obviously, you know, we're in a in a situation where they didn't play healthy players and they wanted to be in the position they were in last night, and then I don't know if it's karma, I don't know if it's you know, you the old Jerry Sloan saying that most of the time in life you get what you earn. And you know, but you know a part of me, you know, I feel bad because I'm a jazz guy, and uh, I want them to do well.
And I have a lot of friends who still work there and and work hard and try and do the right thing and all that, but last night was was a telling tale that that you can't you know, just somehow manipulate these things to to put yourself in a in a winning advantage and and and some somewhere in that spence, for me on a personal level, it just feels like, you know, this is this is what happened can happen to you when you try and and and not do what most people would consider the right thing,
or to do it to the best of your ability, and and then you get something like what happened last night.
Well, and to your point, and maybe it's time to start thinking about this a little differently. My assertion, uh continues to be that the Utah Jazz have to find a franchise pillar that wants to stay here for a while. And if we're honest, we haven't had that since John and Carl. We thought we had it with Gordon, we thought we had it with Darren, we thought we had it with Donovan. How do they find that, smitty, Well,
how do you do well? That's always a trick. And and and the NBA the way it's set up, spencing the collective Bargain Agreement, and and we've we've we've talked about this before and and Gordon Hayward and and uh is the perfect, a textbook example of how the system
is set up to work. And that is that if you draft a guy and you develop him, and you like him, and he's your guy, you know, for the long term, at least that's what you plan for, the team has control of that player basically for the first half of their career. In other words, if you like him and he's developing the way you want and you're building with him or around him, and you want to keep him long term, the team has control of him
for a minimum of seven years. In other words, you got the four year rookie contract, and then he becomes a restricted free agent, so you as a ball club have the right to match any outside offer he might get in order to retain him. So he doesn't have any say in reality about where he plays the first seven years of his contract. The back half of the contract. Now the player controls where he wants to go. And that's exactly what Gordon Hayward did.
He was here seven years, he had the player option for the eighth year, he opted out. He got to choose where he wanted to go, and he went off to Boston and obviously then to Charlotte and and finished his career. Okay, see, but that's that's that's how it's set up to be. So, you know, a team like last night, you know, Dallas ends up winning the lottery a two percent chance to do it. That means they had basically two out of one hundred chants to get it,
and they got it. And so okay, that's why, as I've heard you mentioned before, that's why they call it a lottery. And so they got the lottery ticket and they won it, and so Dallas will have the chance for the whoever they the presumptive number one pick. Everyone's assuming it's it's a Cooper flag. And if we make that assumption, they will have the control of a player like him for at least a minimum of seven years
that they can plan on. And of course they try and get him in the system and get him to love them and blah blah blah, so that you end up with a you know, hopefully John Stockton or a Carl Malone type thing where you got the guy for fifteen or seventeen years or whatever. If it works out, but it doesn't. Usually it doesn't work out like that, It usually works against you. But one of the things
I wanted to mention Spence along with that. I don't know how you felt about this, but I'm watching the program last night and I was I found myself somewhat offended by or embarrassed by the way the league had all these players at the at the at this lottery, all the so called top pick players, and they paraded them out, and they had some of them in interviews before Hey, what do you think about the lottery? What do you think the two kids from Rutgers? What do
you think about this kid? What do you think about yourself? You know, you know whatever? And all I could think of the whole time was has any did anybody watch the NFL draft? Did anybody pay any attention to all the stuff that was going on with Shador Sanders And he's supposed to be a top five pick and he ends up going on the third day and how embarrassing that was for him and everybody else who was saying he's gonna be a top five guy. And hear the
NBA of praying these guys. And now they bring Cooper fly to the to the table after the draft, and there every one of the guys on the table asked him a question directly about being a member of the Dallas Mavericks. And I'm sitting there going, did I miss something?
Was the draft tonight? Because I thought the draft was in six weeks.
I mean, there's so much that can happen between now and June twenty sixth. And we presume that they're gonna keep the pick. We presume they're gonna take Cooper fly, but a lot of things can happen.
Spence.
Item A on the table is Yiannis, and Gianna says, you know, maybe I'll look at some other stuff and whatever. Now, wow, you know, and I'm surprised I didn't read anything today where anybody said, oh, would if you were put in the position, would you trade the number one pick right now for Giannis?
Would you do that? As an organization?
You know, Like, I'm surprised nobody said that, because you know, Yannis is a real guy. He's already proven he's a real guy, and he's in his prime. And you're telling me, you know, teams wouldn't look and go, well, wait a minute, now, I'm going to take an eighteen year old kid from college or I can have Yannis in his prime to go with my group because my job is to try and see if I can get us to a championship level.
Like I mean, I don't know.
I think it's just that's an interesting question to me. But I even't heard that. And that's because everybody on the broadcast I was doing the whole broadcast aimed at Cooper Flag is number one, and he's going, whoever gets number one, and that's it, and we're all in on it, and his parents are there, and everybody's sitting there, and I'm going, does somebody have Deon Sanders number? Because somebody should call him and say, hey, how is this for
you guys? When it didn't happen on the first day of the draft, and then it didn't happen on the second day of the I mean, I just thought that was I don't know.
I know it's TV.
I know they're they're they're doing it for TV, But I just I thought that was so egregious by the NBA making all these presumptions about what they think is already going to take place six weeks from now. For some reason, I just found that little a little distasteful.
Well, it's a good angle to take because you've been part of rooms for a number of different years, namely for decades where you do have to make decisions, and sometimes the decisions you make are completely counter to what everyone on the on the outside looking in believes is going to happen.
Now.
Tim McMahon, it was our guest last hour, wrote a piece for the dot com side. It also is ESPN, who's a partner with the NBA, of course, quoting Patrick Demond saying we're not trading one and we.
Are taking Cooper flag.
But the reason why I like this angle is, look, man, I can read all of the Jonathan Gavoni mock drafts I want, and I can read all the guys over at the Athletic do a really good job. You know, there are a lot of really good NBA writers who cover the draft and scouts who dig into this in a way that I just don't day to day because I have four hours of radio to do, so I do lean on them, and you know, ultimately, at least Gavoni has been very consistent that the order is Cooper flag.
Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey and VJ.
Edgecombe, and Gavoni's assertion is if you have one of the top four picks in this draft, you have a chance to draft a player that should be very special for you for a long time. But I feel like I hear that every year and there's a Kawhi mid first round or even Steph goes seven and Steph is generational.
The best player in the world was the second round pick.
So for the Chicken, little Crew and saw Lake that believe the sky is falling, help us understand why it might not be falling.
Well, well, Spencer's a couple of things.
One is the Jazz fell to number five, right, so they're gonna be you know, they have the fifth pick. And and that was also another thing. The the Assistant commission by Commissioner uh Mar Tatum Tatum sorry, he he kept fascilating back and forth when he was saying who the picks were by using the phrase, uh the the the number five pick will be taken by the Utah Jazz.
And I kept thinking, well, you don't know if the Utah Jazz are gonna take number five, the the the number five pick will be going to the Utah Jazz. It should be the phrase and be kept going back and forth that you know a little semantic. That's that's what I spend my nights doing that, picking apart that kind of stuff. But anyway, but but look at this, for example, Spence the most recent in the last decade, the number five picks in the draft going backwards, okay,
starting last year. And you can tell me in need jerk reaction. You like him, you don't like him. They made it, they didn't make it, you know whatever. The thing is number five picks. Ron Holland in Detroit.
Jerry is wildly still out on him.
Sar Thompson love it Detroit, Jade and Ivy. Yeah, by the way, straight number five picks in Detroit and they were that's exactly right, That's exactly right. Jalen Suggs in Orlando mixed results isaka Carokay, Cleveland not great.
Darius Garland like him, Trey Young. I don't like Trey as much as some people. I don't hate Trey as much as something the Aaron Fox, I'd say that's a win at five.
Former jazz man Chris Dunn, probably not the pick you want. Mario Hiszonia, same thing, okay, Alex lenn this is not going well Smith, Thomas Robinson.
When do we get to the Kevin Garnetts and the Trailers.
Okay, the Marcus Cousins, Ricky Rubio, Okay. So the point being, you got some hits, you got some missus, Okay, at number five. That's what happens. Flip it around. Okay, we're watching the playoffs now right. Here's names for you of guys who are contributing, guys on playoff teams.
That are still alive, which is what you want. Okay.
These are the guys who are still helping to drive the bus at this point in time, the middle of May, in the NBA playoffs, and where they were taken in the draft. Jalen Brunson thirty three, YEP, Mikal Bridges ten, Peyton Pritchard twenty six, Max Struce undrafted, Podzemski nineteen, Jokic forty one, Rudy Gobert twenty seven, Jane McDaniels twenty eight,
Josh Hart thirty, naz Reid undrafted. Point being what you can find players anywhere in the draft or even not in the draft, as we just said with Struce, naz Reid, and former jazz Man Wesley Matthews, who had a terrific career being undrafted. But as an organization, you have to
you have to be able to find them. You have to evaluate them accurately, you have to value what they can bring to a team, and then you have to make an assessment if that, if that, adding a player like that to your group is going to make sense. So this whole thing, you know, last night, everybody's disappointed.
I was disappointed. I get it.
You know, people are jumping off the bridges and whatever, you know, because the Jazz didn't get the number one pick. But they going to get a good player if they evaluate accurately, and as always Spence, only time will tell that, but they will have the opportunity amongst a handful of players that they like and evaluate very critically to add someone to their group. They're also going to be picking twenty one from Minnesota. At least they have the twenty
one pick. So you know, we just mentioned a bunch of guys who were picked after twenty one. Jalen Brunson, Prichard, Struce, Jokic, Rudy McDaniels, Josh Hart, Nazreid. All those guys went after twenty one. Right, So the point, my belabored point, is you can find guys, and you can find more than one guy that can actually help and add to your
group and what you're trying to do. But you have to evaluate that in the right frame, and you have to be able to have a group that believes in what they're doing and be able to go go find those guys and how to procure them. And that's gonna be the interesting part over the next six week process between now and June twenty six, which is the draft day.
Tim McMahon is on TV. He was just on our show fifteen minutes ago. Look at that, all right, McMahon.
See see everybody tries to use you, Spence as the stepping starts. True, they come here, true, and then boom fifteen minutes later.
Don t you won't see me doing that? Spence?
No, I appreciate with you. I appreciate with you. Okay, Yeah, Porter's using me as a step in, so I know this.
I'm riding with you. I don't just run to eat. Oh did you say yes fans?
Spence? Sorry, I gotta go.
Yes, yes fans on the final I know you're lied to be all right, at the risk of insulting your intelligence, here we go only because you worked in the league for forty years. Let me put the caveat on the question before I ask you, yes that no party me believes any of this stuff is ripped, never have, never will. But it is a rite of passage for NBA fans this time of year.
Who is there?
Who are fans of a certain team that they received to be that they perceive got screwed, right, So it it ultimately depends on who you cheer for. There are no Dallas Maverick fans today that believe the lottery is rigged. They just believe they got lucky. San Antonio just wants the lottery to continue because you know they they built the dynasties on lottery luck.
Right.
And by the way, non secuitor, if there is an example that the lottery isn't rigged, it's that San Antonio, Texas has been the biggest beneficiar ever. Okay, yes, But for the jazz fan listeners today, that's say little Salt Lake City Jazz moved down last year, the jazz moved down this year. Ten lottery appearances. We've never moved up. The fix is in what do you say to them?
It's well, it's insulting anybody's intelligence. I know you know about the I mean, but look, you know people want to and I think you're right. I heard you earlier say something about you know, we always want to blame somebody else. You know, this is this is the Trump's n b A, if you will, right, Like, it didn't go your way, so we got to find somebody else.
To blame, that's right.
Yeah, So you know, which is obviously ridiculous. I know you had I know you had Andy Larson on the last hour, and and he was in the room and and he saw the pingbound balls and and I saw a fascinating article. Someone who else was also in the
room wrote wrote a piece. It might have been Andy, I'm not sure that I wrote read late last night about exactly how the balls came up they were it wasn't, yeah, and and recounting how the numbers were and all that kind of stuff, and and uh, you know, look that that's why it's a lot of this this stuff happens. You know there the jazz just didn't get lucky. You you know, you work all year to try and get that.
And look, Spencer, we've talked about this and and I use this example with you you know a while ago on this show, I don't know who else would would take a fourteen percent chance and put all their chips in the middle of the table.
You don't go in.
You don't go into Caesar's palace and they say, hey, hey, come on over to the table here, son, We're going to give you a fourteen percent chance to win some big money tonight. You go, wow, what table is that? I want to go to that table? Like, you know,
nobody does that. I mean, so so, you know, And then I read with Justin Zanik, you know, said after the draft, you know, we knew going in that, you know, we had a fourteen percent chance to get the thing, which meant we were also having eighty six percent chance not to get it, and we're prepared for this. I'm not sure if I'm sure they knew that. Obviously they know all those kinds of things, but I think everybody was hoping against hope that this would happen for them. Hey,
the people in Washington were doing the exact same thing. Yeah, they had the one game better than the Jazz on the last second shot in the last game of the season, and they had a fourteen percent chance and they went from possibly one to six, the Jazz went from possibly one to five. Yeah, and Charlotte dropped the spot. So Pelicans dropped to seven. Yes, they dropped two. Yeah, And so you know, that's just what the lottery is. It
made for great TV for half an hour, okay. But but the interesting thing is that great TV for half an hour quickly turned the fortunes of one group, which was the Dallas Mavericks, into a big plus.
Right.
They sent people like the Washington Wizards a group and the Utah Jazz Group going out the side door with their heads hung low because they're all disappointed because they were hoping against hope that that this would this would work out for them and it didn't. And you know, I, as we've we've talked about before, Spence, it's I don't get it. That's just me. I did these things for a lot of years. I was in these draft rooms.
I was, you know, in discussions with how we're gonna move up and down and out and in and all this stuff. And you know the fact that you spend a whole year positioning yourself purposely to be in a spot where you are going to the the poker table, You're going to the blackjack table and they're telling you, hey, for all of your effort and all of your harder and money, son, we're gonna give you a fourteen percent chance to win tonight. Sit right down, we're gonna get your ginger ale and here we go.
And like, who would do that? Like, I just don't get it.
And unfortunately it didn't work out for the Jazz And now they're they're trying to regroup. They're gonna get a good player at five. They're not gonna get a Cooper Flag. They're not gonna get a Dylan Harper, all right, but they're gonna get a good player unless they come up with something else. There's a lot of things that can happen between now and the draft day. They got six weeks to try and move up if that's what they
want to do. Put a package together with another team, work with three teams, you know, move the balls around, do something, you know, to position themselves differently, if that's the way they see it. Danny Ainge has been known to do that in the past, and so he may have some ideas about, you know, how to be able to work this in his in his favor to the
to the Jazz's benefit. And only time will tell, but it certainly puts them, you know, behind a bigger ball, if you will, in the next six weeks, then they would have been if they had come out, you know, with what they what they deemed to be the top prize.
All right, before we catch a break, one more question here come up next, we'll talk about some of the optionality, which is the buzzword in pro basketball. The Jazz do have with Giannis reportedly open to being traded and the Jason Tatum news that the Achilles is ruptured. Does Boston try to pivot move on? Could the Jazz get involved in any of these discussions to maybe expedi the process a little bit, or will next year look a lot like this year did?
But before we catch break, and I don't know this, but in order to be.
Fair, and yes, I cannot debate or argue with you my opinion of what I thought the Jazz should do right out of the gates when they traded Donovan and Rudy. If that was your decision to jettison Donovan, Rudy, Bogdanovich, Conley O'Neil, the whole group in Quinn, Leaves and Dennis leaves. My opinion was you do have to go all in in one direction or the other. That's my opinion, okay,
and I will not change that opinion. But based off of what they elected to do this year, is it only fair to assume that they did try to get a mchel Bridges or a Paul George or whatever it was last offseason, and when their best laid plans disintegrated, this was kind of their only course.
Is that fair to assume? I don't know. Yeah, I think that.
You know, you're always trying to find a quicker way to get on the on the in the fast lane on the highway, right, so so you're always trying to improve your team. You know, there's no such thing as a six year, a seven year and eight year you know, rebuilding a time frame. Nobody puts an artificial time limit
on how long this is supposed to take. Because in a perfect world, something would happen for you tomorrow that would make you go from you know, the seven Celtics to the eight Celtics, right from near the bottom of the league to winning a championship in one year because of some moves that you're able to make. That was a Danny Ainge deal where he was able to parlay, you know, a disappointment where he felt like they were
hoping to get the top pick. They were hoping to get the second pick at that at that year, which happened to be the Greg Odin Kevin Durant draft.
They didn't.
They moved, They move move down like the Jazz did last night, ended up moving back to five. They didn't like that spot in the draft. Danny Ainge was able to move that pick to end up getting Ray Allen to come from Seattle, and then in a different move, was able to move some picks, move some other guys to Minnesota to get Kevin Garnett, and all of a sudden, you've got Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce and you go from being a bottom five team in the
league to winning the championship twelve months later. So everybody wants to do that type of thing. The Jazz, what they have done successfully to this point is they put themselves in a position, as you mentioned a minute ago, you know the favorite word optionality or flexibility, to be able to do a number of different things depending on
what's presented to you. Forty eight hours ago, you would have never thought there was anything that could ever, you know, impermeate the Boston Celtics roster, right because they've got a good group.
It's a high paid group.
It costs a lot of money, but they're a top five NBA team, the reigning champions, you know, and all of that. Now Jason Tatum goes out as a ruptured Achilles more than likely, you know, most estimations are that he more than likely missed the whole of next year. So that puts a big hole there where he's out. So now you're paying a lot of money to a lot of guys, and how much does that damage what you've planned to do because he's.
In his prime.
So now do you just wait it out if you're the Celtics, or do you say, well, we can't do this. They got a new ownership group in place, and it's costing him a lot of money and salaries, luxury tax and penalties. So do they look at it and go, well, we may have to do something different, and so maybe we get rid of Jalen Brown, and maybe we get rid of Drew Holliday, and maybe we get rid of you know, whatever it is, because we can't sit around and just wait and hope Tatum comes back to be
the old Tatum that he was. Yep, And so that becomes something on the table. So now the Jazz are sitting there at the bus stop, so to speak, with a big basket of draft picks and players that they're willing to trade because they don't care because at the moment, you know, the guys they've got, whether they like him, they don't like them, or they're in the middle or something on their own guys, you know, they're not winning,
so it doesn't matter. So everybody's in play. So whether it's your players or your your treasure trove of picks, you you are in a position to go to Boston and say, what are you thinking? I don't know, we probably got to do something with Jalen Brown. Okay, what's gonna take? You know, five draft picks, Lowry Marketing and this guy or that guy whatever, and so you're in position to pounce on something like that.
Is it something like that that may come up? We don't know.
Is it something like Phoenix, which is around the corner that probably has to do something with Durant and Beale in some way, shape or form. Because that's obviously not working. Is it something that involves Giannis who wants to go somewhere else And it may not be the Jazz, but the Jazz may be a third team that helps something getting involved. All of those things are in play spence.
So so that's the one thing that Jazz have going for them is they've got a lot of open doors that they could walk through depending on what presents itself to them in the coming weeks.
The world of professional golf turns its side of the PGA Championship at Quel Hollow coming up this weekend. One year ago today, well not one year go today, but one year ago. Smidty PGA Championship Scotti Scheffler arrested prior to round two, which was just so wild.
Richard Smith is live in studio.
Jordan Speith going for the career Grand Slam coming up this weekend after Rory McElroy was able to grab it with his green jacket.
All right, Smitty.
Of course, the big news of the day today that we've been dissecting so far as the Utah Jazz will draft number five in the upcoming NBA Draft down June, the twenty fifth Shamsherarnia reporting that the Jazz will try to be very active to move up in seid NBA drafts. I've had a lot of friends reach Alie, Hey, can they just move up and draft Cooper Flag at one. I'm like, well, you have to have the other general manager agreed to the deal.
In place, Like, yes, in theory, just do that.
But what are what are the conversations like when it's like, all right, we like this guy at three, but we're at five. Can we get to three? Or we kind of like the guy that might be at seven. Can we move down to seven and grab a couple of other assets? Like what does that sound like?
Well, it reminds me suspense you say that about just moving up, you know. Frank Laydon said he one time got a call from someone who a very influential person in the community, said, hey, Hi, that's great. I do we have a good young team with that Stockton kid and the Malone guy. You know, you know would be really good with them, would be uh, would be Patrick Ewing. You know you guys should get Patrick Ewing. And Frank said, really,
he goes, that's that's a good idea. He goes, Now, how do you suggest we do that, Well, you just call call New York, you know, and and they're going to give us Patrick Ewing, He goes like he's.
You guys like Rich Key, Yeah, that's Rich Kelly in his second for Patrick Man shout out.
To Rich Kelly. Uh, that's one of my guys, Rich Kelly.
Yes, So Smittie, I mean ultimately, uh, if I just asked you for your best guess as far as what next year is going to look like, because you know again, Adam Silver and the NBA in twenty nineteen decided to flatten the lottery odds and was their motivation to dissuade teams from tanking. Probably they also put some financial things into place that make your overspending very punitive. So great
teams like the Nuggets we've seen lose some players. The Warriors had to make a decision on Clay Phoenix as you referenced. Boston as we've talked about, well maybe jettison off from some of their talent players. Do the Jazz have what it takes to potentially do what Danny Ainge said two summers ago and go big game hunting to get some good players. So therefore, next year you're not insulting the integrity of the game by intentionally losing every night. And as you said earlier, fate karma.
I don't know. I don't know nothing about nothing. Is that stuff real?
Maybe, but twenty nineteen lottery odds flattened. Six drafts later, the worst team in the NBA has not received the number one pick since. So just best guess what do you think the offseason and what do you think next season looks like for Jazz fans?
Well, again, I think the Jazz have a lot of stuff they they can propose, you know, to uh again to beat the dead horse, you know, uh Danny's famous comment. But we're gonna go big game hunting. And and we've said this before, Spence, you can go big game hunting.
You can.
You can tell your wife on Friday, Hey, I'm going up in the mountains and I'm gonna get a bag of big, big buck and I'm gonna bring it back and.
We're gonna have deer meat all winter or whatever.
And you go up and you come back at the end of the weekend and you have nothing, and your wife, I thought you were going I thought you were going big game. Well I did, and where's the big game. I didn't get him. You didn't see him. I saw him, but I didn't get them, you know, and whatever I mean. That's you know, the Jazz are gonna do that. They're gonna do a version of that. Uh this spring and summer. They're gonna try and do a lot of different things
that can improve their team quickly. Uh, They're gonna have some some opportunity used to look at stuff. You know, you always need a trade partner, You need someone who has sometimes a different motivation than you. So it may be a team that is trying to get out from a high paid player who's a good player, but it just isn't working, I e.
The Phoenix Suns.
It may be something, you know, where a top line player just needs a change of scenery and the team that has him under contract feels like they need a change of scenery because it just isn't working the way they thought, I e.
Milwaukee.
It could be you know, from a couple of years ago, you know when the Brooklyn Nets looked like they were going to be running the NBA for five, six, seven years with Durant and Harden and Kyrie Irving and those three guys played a total of sixteen games together during their time in Brooklyn, which is unfathomable now when you look back on it, and it just didn't work. And so they were trying to get rid of each one of those guys in different different fashion. So those kinds
of things can come up. You don't know tomorrow if they're gonna happen. You don't know next week if it's gonna happen. But if you're prepared to be able to react, you might have some stuff you might be able to do. You couple it with a draft pick, with two draft picks, with one of your guys, with three of your guys, whatever it is, and you can make over your team somewhat quickly, as we mentioned earlier what Danny Ainge did in seven the Summer of seven with the Boston Celtics.
But a lot of things have to fall into place. But the situation the Jazz are in now, as much as you don't like the way they lost and the way they were the worst team in this year, and a lot of metrics and a lot of the analytics said that they were really bad. So from the Jazz perspective, in that regard, you don't have anything to lose, like you're not giving up something that Ooh, I don't know if we can give away this, because that may damage what we've been doing so far, because we haven't done
anything so far. So in that regard, you know, the door's wide open, and they could do a lot of things, and a lot of things would have to fall their way and would have to some things within their ability to control, they could do that. There's some things that may have to just fall in their lap that are beyond their control, that just happened to them or become
present to them to take advantage of. But those are all things that they're going to look at and all things that Danny Inge has used to doing and has done before and has shown that he's not shy about making those kinds of decisions. And we just see it here spends the Jazz and the situation they are in now because Danny Hinge came in in the first twelve months he was on the job with the Jazz, you know, jettisoned the whole thing that that was in place then
and decided to start over. So we know that he has he has the uh, the intestinal fortitude and the guts to make those kind of decisions and not blink and so so, will he have opportunities, will they be able to execute them?
Will there be things that that he.
Uh, he can act upon but needs other people to cooperate. All those things are movable parts, and those are those are the things that become exciting and at the same time become frustrating when you're trying to get something done.
So do you think next year will look a lot like this season did? Well? I think it.
I think they're going to try and make it look a lot different in terms of making some moves. Whether it's a draft, whether it's a free agent thing, whether it's trades, Whether they get stuff done on any of those fronts or all of them, remains to be seen.
And I but I think, you know, if they just if they don't get anything done and they just go through this draft and and and pick whoever they get and try and develop them, then I think they could be in for another type of season next year because that they've had this year.
Because Spence, to your.
Point earlier, everybody in the NBA is looking to be one of the top five teams in the league that has a serious chance of competing all year long and through the playoffs, or you want to be one of the five worst teams to have a chance like last night, Okay, they did that part didn't work out. Okay, that's one
big swing and mess. Okay, that happened. But you don't want to be one of the one of the twenty teams that's in between those two areas what we always would refer to with the gray area, because those are the teams that either they're fooling themselves because they're a eight nine to ten type team, or they're a twenty twenty one to twenty two type team and they want to convince themselves that they're better than they really are and they have a chance to compete when they really don't.
You know. The current example of that to me is somebody like the Atlanta Hawks, who you know, maybe the Miami Heat, although the Heat broke through a couple of years ago and and you know, got to the finals and you know, but they had some breaks to get through that, but it worked. But sometimes you can fool yourself into thinking you're one of those guys. You don't want to be in that gray area because you're just
trading water. So if you can make some moves. Then you look at that with a strong eye to try and get better quickly.
Yeah, the irony in what you're saying is the number ten team in the Western Conference here this year was the Dallas Mavericks, who now owned the number one overall tip. There you go, and so you know now that we have, you know, after they flattened the lottery odds in twenty nineteen, I think a lot of people said, Okay, well, let's wait and see how this looks. And now that we have six drafts in six lotteries behind us, and the data now says tanking does not guarantee you anything.
In the NFL, it does, Okay, it's inverse order. Period. They reward teams that are horrible.
Ironically enough, teams like my Jets do not seem to ever find their way out.
Of that group.
But in pro basketball, the data is in that you can tank all you want, and if you think that's the right way to roll, then you can roll that way. And yes, your percentages are slightly higher than the teams behind you. But now that we know that guarantees nothing, is it time to maybe consider a paradigm shift for the teams like the Jazz or Washington or whoever that clearly have been unseerious about winning.
Now for a minute, well, I.
Don't know the lottery, I think, I mean, I understand what you're saying about.
You know, now we have six years, we can look at it a little bit.
But the lottery, I know this sounds kind of simplistic, but the lottery is the lottery. In other words, you can't predict what's going to happen. So anybody who wants to play that game, like the Jazz did this year again, spence to be the dead horse.
You know.
Anybody who works that hard for six months to get a fourteen percent chance to win something, I mean, good luck to you. I mean, you know, that's that's uh, you know, I don't know that. I don't get that whole thing. But anyway, that's that's what they did. That's what Washington did, That's what Charlotte did. Toward the end of the year. None of them ended up in the top three. You know, That's that's just the way that that stuff it goes. That's that's, you know, just taking
a big gamble. The NFL. The NFL is a different animal because they they schedule differently. You don't play everybody else in the NFL over over a whole season, and the NFL schedule is weighted so that the better teams last year play each other next year, and the lesser teams last year play each other this year. And it's all in the hopes Spence, that when you get to week sixteen and seventeen in the NFL, everybody's eight and eighty, everybody's nine and seven, everybody's got a chance. The last
couple of weeks. In the NBA, everybody plays everybody else. In your conference, you play four games. A couple of teams of three games, but most of them you're playing two at home, two in the road, and the other conference you play one home, one on the road.
And so over the course of an eighty two game.
Season, it usually works out that the better teams are the better teams. And you know, when you get to this lottery stuff, that's just what it is. And I don't understand people who you know, don't. I mean, it's not that complicated, Spence. It's just like going to the playground, like the hard scrabbles streets that you grew up in a New Canaan.
There we go see that.
And you guys, you get to the playground and you go, okay, you know, Spencer Smidder, you guys are choosing up. Okay, okay, okay, I got first pick. Who are you gonna take. You're gonna take the kid you know is the best player in the neighborhood, and then you're going to take the next guy and whatever. And the whole purpose is what the whole purpose is to win the game you're playing, so you get to stay on the court and the losers have to go off and play the next group
of guys. Right, the NBA system in the playoffs, it's it's just a bigger, grandiose version of that. All the teams are trying to get the better players so they can stay on the court and keep playing. Right, So when it comes to the lottery, the lottery is what it is. It's just a flip of the coin, or in this case, literally the bounce of the ping pong balls.
And I was interested to read Andy Larson's description last night, specifically saying, you know, they they turned the machine on and the balls bounce around for twenty seconds, and then the guy pulls the plug and the ball comes out and then they reset it and then the balls bounce around for another ten seconds and then bah blah blah blah blah. And you know, and it's very precise and direct in how they do that to give everybody a
fair shot. And you know, I would rather be in a lottery spence where I have an eighty six percent chance of getting it, but you have an eighty six percent chance of not getting it. So that's what you're rolling with. I say, good luck, and I'm going to keep my money in my back pocket.
And the system is not changing anytime soon. Do you think they look at it? I mean, would you like to see a different approach?
I mean no, because I think they I think they've I think they've not overthought. I think they've thought it through enough with enough statisticians and mathematicians and and what are the odds? And how do you do this? And there used to be one ping pong ball and fourteen teams and they ruffled it up and they go okay, and they pull out one ball and they go, uh, number five, who's got number five? Oh, the Atlanta Hawks
have number five? Okay, they get the first pick. I mean it used to be that now that's four ping pong balls. And they each have a number on them. So they get them one number okay, and number seven okay, all right, the next one number thirteen, whatever. And then they then you have a big, you know, print out sheet and you look at okay, do we have lottery number.
It's just like Spence buying a lottery ticket over across the border in Idaho, and you got the numbers on the ticket and they read off the fourth number.
Ah, I had a seven. They call those six. I didn't win it. You know. It's the same thing. I mean.
And and so they've got that figured out. It just doesn't work for you. And to your point, Spence, everybody wants to find a reason that we didn't win and somebody's against us, and you know whatever, and that's just it's just not the case.
It's just that's the reality of what a lottery is.
And I think, well, my guess is the other thing that really stings about last night? And John Hollinger wrote a piece on this for The Athletic Today. So again the jazz fault, I'm gonna say air quotes fall to five. It was the most likely scenario based off the percentages prior to the Lotteryka and Zanak talked about this, Yeah, one and two.
It was basically a fifty percent change, right.
Right, right, So forty eight point seven percent chance they were gonna draft at five fourteen percent chance they were gonna draft it one. But I don't think the sting that fans are feeling today is only about that. I think it's also about the fact that Dallas and San Antonio, two of your Western Conference piers, are at one and two. Because if you're a Jazz fan, you're already looking up at well, I'm not even gonna read the list everybody,
You're already looking up at everybody. At least san Antonio was kind of in your cul de sac right this year, even though they got Wembin Yama and Dallas took such such a calculator risk to get rid of Donchic, so you thought, okay, maybe they're falling back down on.
Earth as well.
Yeah, so now two of the teams that you thought maybe we're not that far away from, you're miles away from again. So I think if you're a Jazz fan today, it's not just man, we didn't get one or two. We actually are drafting five it's two of our Western Conference piers have one and two, and now we've got miles to go to catch them.
Yeah, and and and the fact that their Western conference is a good point. But but you're right when when they when they showed Ashley Smith, who I felt on the stage and and her being in that position and she's on an island by herself at that moment in time, and and not used to that that scenario and everything, and.
Look on her face. I just want to reach the TV. Yeah, felt really bad for her.
And and uh, but then they but then they exacerbated by going and now we're gonna go to commercial and we'll come back for the final four picks, and they go to a three minute commercial and they rearrange the stage and all that stuff, and and uh and when when they when they picked the Charlotte at at four And then I'm sitting there going, are you kidding me? San Antonio and Dallas and and then and then those two are left, and I go and I literally I
I started laughing a little bit out loud. I was watching with coach coach Layton and and and with Linda and and I'm sitting there. You gotta be kidding me, I said, And then at that moment in time, I thought, boy, I hope san Antonio gets the first pick.
This is just gonna be.
A bigger story that if they get the first back again, are you kidding me? You know? And and uh, you know, then all the guys would really be out of the woodwork. But as it is, they're gonna get a They're gonna get one of those two guys, I would assume, and you know, and there they may be off to the races again.
You know.
It's uh, that's that's you know.
I don't know what to say about that, except except that's that's the proverbial and literal bounce of the ball.
That's why they call it the lottery. There we go, Manny, Thanks for your time. My friend will see you soon, okays, appreciate you.
Richard Smith Live in studio