The great Quincy Jones passed away at the age of ninety one. I don't know that Michael Jackson should have been the lead off based off all the options we have, we're gonna play artists that Quincy Jones had a hand.
Maybe maybe we ease off the the MJ.
Hey, to be clear, what was the first one you mentioned? Also, we got the radio play here. I gotta I gotta dig into the the uh, the records to get some of the Quincy jonesmen. They're not they're not giving me any very many options for Sinatra. Okay, but hey, but look, Charles Ray, Charles, Hey, look, I'll tell you what.
Occasionally Ignition by R Kelly comes on my playlist and.
I'm like, what do you It's a good song.
What do you want me to do?
You're dancing to it?
So you know what, Hello, Smitty, let's turn on Smitty's Mike here.
Let's get Smitty dialed a way.
What is what?
What?
What should deal with Michael Jackson?
Maybe you haven't googled it? In a minute, Uh, just gonna I'm back away.
From the Quincy Jones. Michael Jackson.
That was That's one of the all time most successful partnerships.
And I'm not talking about how many how many records he sold. Man, his success is not arguable. We're on the same page with that one.
Hey, no, no, no, no, but hey, all you have to do is play anything from the uh what was the documentary that came out in the in the last year on Netflix with the the.
One where they all got together?
That was good. By the way, we'll play we Are the World. We can do that. That one's safe.
Yeah.
But Quincy Jones, I mean a legend passed old.
No, and he was.
He was such a such an icon in in the music industry and uh and then at a time when when he was able to assert his leadership in the music industry with a lot of uh uh, not only new artists but also established artists who wanted to come and work with him, and he had he had a long, long run of success. And that's very sad to hear of.
His passing, certainly. So that's going to be the musical theme on the show today. We'll try to remound from o awkward start. Richard Smith, you are a number of different things. You are a basketball savant, you are a longtime member of the Utah Jazz. You are a former baseball All Star and competitive softball outfielders extraordinaire, but you're also a man in our community that has been kind
of ingrained in the fabric of our sporting culture. And this is a unique week, right like Utah BYU football one hundred and second meeting first time in three years. BYU breaks their nine game losing streak a couple of years back. They have not won in Salt Lakes since two thousand and six, and we have two teams heading in completely different directions. The nature of rivalry games, it's always been an interesting topic to me because if you ever played in one, and I never played for anything,
it mattered. But if you play throughout the course of your high school or AAU career and the other school is your rival, it feels different.
It always does. I love the energy. I think it's a lot of fun.
As a man who's been to a lot of these games, What do you make of what we could see on Saturday?
Well, you know what's exciting about this, first of all, is that if we just go back a few months, right in July, when all the pre hype and all that stuff is taking place, and everything before the season even started. If you looked at the game on the schedule this Saturday on November ninth, you would have thought, Okay, they're going to go into that game Utah is probably going to be eight to oh and BYU is probably
going to be four and four. Right, That would have been the projection in July, And now you get here this week the script is completely flipped.
And that's one.
Of the great things, as we always talk about sports being live theater, that you know, you can practice, you can do all the stuff that people do on Broadway right for their theater presentation, and then when the curtain goes up in the theater, you know what's gonna happen because you have a script and you follow it and you know who's gonna who's gonna get married to who
at the end of the musical and whatever. But in sports, you do all the same preparation and then the curtain goes up and you have no idea what's gonna take place in the next couple hours, you know, And so
that's what makes it always exciting. And and of course this week with the flip of the scripts and b YU, you know, running running away with a lot of stuff right now in terms of the conference and what's happening there and the position they are in and Utah, you know, stumbling and and and being the place that they're in. It just makes it more more exciting to discuss it, which I know this radio station will do odd nauseum all all week long, and we'll talk about the same quarterback issues.
S want of time, we'll talk about We'll.
Talk George, can't you Yes, yes, Smitty, we are going to cover Uta e Yu football from every single.
As as it should be. Yeah, I'm just saying, but it's going to be. And how about you? How about you and Porter and whoever whoever was responsible for getting Kalani satak on. I'm like the opening act for the Yes, Yes you are, yeah, Rise, I'm even in the same stage.
But you know, well, look, you're You've got Kyle Winningham.
You've lived here how many years, midty.
I've been here forty three years.
This is home for you now, even though you go back to the high school in you know, in the soft part of Connecticut where I didn't grow up, but this is home. So it's it's it's really the only thing that we have where we got Thanksgiving coming up. There are split tables. You know, people are watching this game with anxiety, so they don't walk into elders coorm
and their b Yu goog brought. You know, the dude in their ward is wearing his blue tide and his blue suit and he's going to give you the crap.
So it it's the only thing we have in the state the causes that dynamic.
Yeah, well, you know, and and uh in our house. Uh, my wife uh is a b y U grad and I worked at the at the U for a lot of years when I first came to the Salt Lake, when I was working both at the University of Utah and and with the jazz and and we have one of those flags that I think is I don't know if it's been outlawed or you can't.
Get them now or what we were thinking.
Yeah, yeah, one of those flags where it's down the middle and it says, you know, uh, I forget even what's on the flag split split house or something or whatever.
You know.
The ones I've seen have both logos.
Yeah, yeah, well this has yeah, this has BYU logo on half and the Utah logo on half, and it said, oh you know what the word is on the label of the flag is house divided.
That's what it is.
Yes, yes, And so that's what we have and and we'll have that flag up tonight for this week and it'll be it'll be fun.
Well, And you and I were talking about something off air that I think is a worthwhile on air conversation because I know this week hits some people much differently and they don't like it. They don't like the anxiety, they don't like the dissension, they don't like the heated exchanges.
Now I don't live online, so.
We'll let the message board people do the message board people thing. And I don't know how much of that really permeates in real life, honestly, don't. I feel like the people that don't like this week are talking about the mean thing somebody will say online about them, which shouldn't matter at all. But like I said, you also get the church back and forth. You know, obviously plenty of both alumni and students, and you know, bring them young,
the majority of them being LDS. But there's a religious element to this thing. It doesn't exist in very many other rivalries, and it does add to it, you know what I mean, because there's always this feeling of well, if BYU want, it's because they're living right and God loves them. And if you taw one, they got lucky
because they're all sinners. Like, there's always this there's this thing that kind of ties into it that makes it unique in a way that I think is a lot of fun, but some people don't really enjoy it.
Well, I think that, and I think a good layer of the uniqueness spence is that within that church dynamic, you have the people who are b Yu supporters, who are you know, uh largely members of the l d S Church. But you also have a good section of of active l d S people who are Utah fans, and so you have the b y U people.
This is this is my perspective.
Now over the years, you have the b Yu fans who look at the the l d S Utah fans and wonder, well, why why you over there? You know with that group, you should you should be over here with us. This is where you where you should be. And the people who are members of the l d S Church and and uh uh uh support the you and a big Utah fans uh. The b Yu fan fans can't understand why they would they would be in that put themselves in that position. So that to me,
that's always added another layer. And even you know, you know, you know we just mentioned the house divided, you have a lot of you know, like the the the Wilson family, you know, Zach and I and and and I said Wilson. You know, their family grew up big Utah fans and all the time and and supported them season tickets and all that stuff. And then and then Zach ends up going to b YU mainly because you didn't think he was good enough and didn't really you know, recruit him,
and uh. And then so you have that kind of stuff where even within the house you have people who are rooting and have different rooting interests. So that that's what puts another layer to me. You're talking about the church thing and and uh and and people having a loyalty split that way.
Yeah, no, it's well said.
It is funny how b y U fans view And we're generalizing here, so before I get a bunch of d ms and emails, everybody'd take a few deep breaths.
We're just generalizing.
But there is this faction of the b y fan base that simply just views anybody that is LDS and decided.
To go apostate Utah with judgment.
Then there's this faction of the Utah fan base that's LDS that looks down on the BYU fans is pious and holier than now right a mind, and it just it ties into this dynamic that makes it so interesting and attending to it. Look, I'm not gonna say it's the only college football rivalry that's like this, but Jay Hill, Siona Pua, Utah grats Aaron Roderick, Kalani Satake, former Utah coaches, Kyle Whittingham, former BYU player, Like that doesn't happen very
many other college football rivalries. So it's kind of the way I like to describe it. It's kind of like this dysfunctional extended family right where at the end of the day, I believe when you're not playing against each other, you want the other to do well. Now, not fans right like you, There are a lot of you fans that want BYU to lose every game. Yeah, a lot
of BYU family want Utah to lose every game. But I think like under the family umbrella of coaches and players, it feels like over the years I've mostly witnessed respect all the time, but mostly no.
I think I think they do, and I think that's what it has always been. The interesting part for me, Spence. The people who are involved in it, the people who are in the circle, so to speak, they get it, and they do it with respect. They understand what the whole thing is, you know that, that's my opinion. The people who are outside the circle, who are the fans looking down from thirty thousand feet or whatever, they're the
ones who get all riled up and everything. I wish it would just be you know that you could do it in good fun, like you do when you're in a locker room and you're with the guys that you play with, and you you tease each other about each other's school, the whey they went, and how their school is doing, and you do it good naturedly, and it's always for fun and and you you enjoy it, and you enjoy the back and forth and the teasing and kidding.
What happens in this rivalry is that there's too many people who go the negative route and who go, you know, the attacking route, and you know everything's bad about.
The other side or whatever it is.
And that's the part that's a little distasteful for me. I wish people would just like keep it above the line and have fun with it. And you know, because hey, guess what, On Sunday, the game will be over and on Monday, everybody'll be back to their regular life or whatever. And it doesn't really amount to a lot of things other than hopefully a competitive football game between two familiar schools that the fans are ruining for and can get up for and have fun with it.
So a lot of good points in there. It felt like the fever pitch.
And this is just my little echo chamber here, it felt like the fever pitch for hate was at an all time high when Bronco was coaching BYU because Bronco and Kyle, like, you got to call that thing how it is. You could tell that there was no love lost, and you know, I'm privy to certain things behind the scenes that indicates that they just didn't like each other.
And that's all right.
But Bronco was like central casting for why YOUT fans sometimes don't like BYU. He was pious, he was holier than now. He quoted scripture during his press conference. You know, I was down at a BYU event, m seeing that i've or I did my show prior to the event down to Thanksgiving point.
I've done it three years in a row now.
And one of the BYU players told the story of Bronco coming to his house to recruit his son. And this BYU player is the current stake president down South and he said, Bronco's first question to his kid is what's your favorite scripture? And the guy's like, what are we doing? You're here to recruit him to play football? Right, So Bronco was a perfect face for what YOUT fans perceived BYU to be.
And BYU fans.
Were out of Kyle for saying no to his you know, his alma mater and yes to the rival. So it seemed that the fever pitch, as far as the hate goes, was at an all time high when those two were at it, because Ronnie Mack and Level loved each other, yes, and you could feel it.
Urban came over. He invented team.
Down South and that's a stolen you know, and so you know that played into it. Utah was awesome, but it felt like after Kilanie got the job, Kilane, to me, deserves a lot of the credit for what I perceived to be a little bit more civility among the two fan bases since he took the job.
That's my prism.
Yeah, and I would agree with that.
You know, kilani Is is such a first and Foremo, such a good person, U centered person. He understands the whole thing from both sides. He understands what it's all about, you know. And he's also one of these guys who's not full of himself. You know, he's he's doing it, you know, for the right reasons. He's he's coaching his team, He's got him going in a terrific direction trajectory, and uh, and the way he carries himself and the way he speaks.
You know, I think you can't help but like him and root for him because of the way that he that he goes about his business. You know, Kyle's the same way Kyle has, you know, isn't full of himself. Kyle Kyle has for all of his success is uh, you know, really believes and just coming and and and getting to work and trying to do your best and
respecting your opponent. And I would hope that this week, the fans as they're as they're engaging each other in that regard heading up to the game Saturday night, are you know, would take the lead from the two coaches and understand, Hey, this this should be about sportsmanship and and having a good competitive game and you know, and having fun with it and not not getting over the line, you know, to the other stuff that that really doesn't doesn't really serve anybody.
And yeah, there's nothing as well said, there's nothing not to like about either Kyle or Kloney. And I can tell you it's real because you know, we're not best friends, but I'm able to get to know them enough where I feel like I have a good read on the type of people they are. All right, before we catch break one more thing on this and then we'll do
a little We will talk jazz coming up. I mean, I don't really know what there is to say, but we'll try to say some things about the team coming up in a little bit.
So there are two.
Very different paths with these two teams, as you outlined earlier. For BYU, and it's interesting with a big twelve cast we just saw, this is not an elimination game for Brigham Young, like I hear a lot of youth fans, well, let's spoil their paths.
You can't.
Sorry, Like BYU could still and probably is favored to go to the Big twelve championship game no matter what happens on Saturday night. But undefeated season means a lot, you know, if they can interer, maybe the CFPUN defeated, maybe they have a chance to host a home playoff game in provo. Like, there's so many things on the
table for them. For Utah, Smidty and you know, for a lot of these players that don't know the intensity of this thing because they haven't experienced there, didn't grow up here, Kyle did, Morgan did, like the coaches know it's at stake. So for Utah, I guess what's at steak here is maybe one last chance, Like we're partying like it's nineteen eighty six again. It's like one last chance to endear yourself to a community that right now
is really bummed out about the way you played. Because if you are great for one day against BYU, you become a legend around here. That's got to be what's at stake, right, I don't know what else. I mean, there's still the Bowl game thing. And I guess the only thing worse than playing in a throwaway bowl game is not being eligible for one.
So two very different dichotomies here.
No, it's a well, the rivalry game and wanted to have the bragging rights all winter, you know, for your team is important. It's important for every rivalry game. That's what. That's really what the biggest nugget is. No matter what the circumstances are from from year to year. But for Utah, they're coming into the game playing an undefeated top fifteen, ranked top ten team whatever by u is and whatever pole at the moment, and deservedly so they're playing by
an undefeated team. Then next week they have to go to Colorado who's playing very well. And then they come home and they have to play Iowa State, another top top conference team, and then they finish a season at Central Florida, which you would say, oh, well, that's not good. That might be an important game for this Bowl eligibility thing. With those games that Utah has in front of them, you know, they've got to get to six wins to
be Bowl eligible. Yeah, okay, some you know, you just use the phrase or throwaway bowl whether you're going to the the Sun Coast Bowl or the Alamo Bowl or the you know whatever it is in in Paducaville or wherever it's going to be. That's still something for a school that wants to keep its record intact and it's string intact and having something to play for other than the game in front of in front of you.
That you have.
So so these are all important games for Utah and then you ratcheted up for BYU that's that would love to go undefeated and get to the conference championship game and see what happens as far as the CFP type situation. So it's big other than the rivalry aspect of it for both teams.
Yes, it is all right. Before we catch a break, we'll do a little jazz coming up. I looked at the schedule. This could be zero to twenty or maybe even worse. Let's bring in Ken from Lifestyle Men's Health on a Monday. Ken, Happy Monday, sir.
How are you.
I'm doing fantastic, Spence, how about you?
I'm well. I appreciate the time.
So, as I referenced earlier, I've been utilizing testosterone therapy and vitality peptides for about a year and a half and they made a massive difference. I sleep better, I don't have brain fog. My workouts are so much better. And ultimately it's biohacking, so you can turn back the clock a little bit and kind.
Of recapture your youth.
So that's been my experience, Ken, let's hear about yours.
You know, it's interesting. You know, I'm in my mid sixties and it's the same as that you've been experiencing. I feel more vibrant, I'm you know, I think clear, you know literally, you know, people look at me and say, you know, there's no way that you're in your mid sixties. But my point being how I'm optimizing my life, how I'm performing, and how I'm playing tennis. I played tennis two or three times a week and it literally just
gives you energy. So if you're out there you got a little bit of that what they call beer belly, you don't have to accept that. With what we can help you with with the testosterones, with the peptites, so we can curb that and really get you looking fantastic for the new year coming up.
What's that special offer, Ken, you have for our listeners. Who call you today.
Well, the special offer I'm gonna do is anyone who signs up for rectel dysfunction treatments. Before we've been doing three months of free testosterone, I'm gonna do six whoa six months for those who call in today.
You keep bringing these deals like a year and a half after I signed up.
That would been helpful if you did a year and a half ago.
Ken, I wasn't a partner with Angela deed.
Well played, sir, six months. That's the best offer we've had. Pick up the phone. Three eight five four five eight nine two zero three three eight five four five eight nine two zero three three eight five four five eight nine two zero three. You're online at lifestyle Mensclinic dot com. Ken, Thank you, sir, Hey, thanks beance.
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zero ninety one hundred. That's eight oh one eight five zero ninety one hundred, eight oh one eight five zero ninety one hundred. It's kind of a perfect song, right for a rivalry week. Little we are the world, right a little let's be united?
Right? We should all join in on the chorus.
Been, I don't think we're allowed waving our hands back and forth?
Can you sing?
Weighing side to side? Oh? I can?
Oh.
I love to sing.
I sing very badly, just like I love to play golf, but golf very bad. Ok.
Fair enough, Maybe we'll uh, maybe we'll bring back you know what. Just play that song all week.
We are the world? Okay, everybody, A few deep brasks. Yeah, it's all good.
That's right.
Love your brother, love your neighbor.
There we go.
I had a very famous spiritual teacher said that once upon a time it is. Indeed, Richard Smith is live in studio doing a little Utah by U. Last segment. All right, you know we have you in to Top to Top Jazz. You spend forty years in the NBA. You spend forty years with the Utah Jazz, and so I guess we will, Smitty, I don't know when they're gonna win a game. I mean, I've got their schedule pulled up. Like this is as bad as I think
it has been for a long long time. And certainly I'm for it, as you know, because I do think, but I do want Like this is really hard, Like what they're doing is really really hard, isn't it.
Hey Spence. The whole thing is difficult. It's hard to win in the NBA period. Okay, it's even more difficult to win on a consistent level in the NBA. It's even another tier to try and get near the top where you're competitive enough where you're one of the five, six seven teams each year that has a legitimate chance at actually going deep into the into a playoff run. But this, as we've talked about before, this is exactly what the Jazz set up to do. Nobody wants to
be bad bad. But at the same time, the Jazz knew what they were doing when they set all this up, when they traded everybody away, when when the coach left town, when they changed everything around, and they knew that at some point they would have to pay the piper, so to speak. And you know this start. You know, hey,
think about it. Two years ago, the first year of the so called rebuild, they get out of the gate ten and three, and everybody going, whoa, whoa, wait, this is brilliant, you know whatever, and uh And then you know, it slowly dissipated and and uh and went the other
way as the season went on. And then last year they had that nice run in the middle of the year after Christmas where they had the best record for like a one month stretch there in the middle of the season, and then they they traded away a couple of guys that trade deadline, and then it fell apart again.
Uh.
And now they're they're coming out of the blocks the way that you have have asked them to do for the last few years, and so you know, and and you're exactly right when you look at the schedule, it's hard to predict where a win is gonna come from there on the road now, continuing this four game road trip in Chicago tonight and then Milwaukee and then finishing San Antonio before they come home and play play Phoenix and Dallas next week. It is a tough road to hoe.
And but this is, uh, this is what they've set.
Up to do.
And you know it's going to be a very difficult early part of the season. And you're right, it's going to be hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel for anytime soon.
And I do not want to diminish the difficult ask that I know this is okay.
I just don't see another path.
And as you know, being in the front office for as long as you were, paths randomly manifest themselves out
of nowhere, okay. And so obviously you leave space for a billionaire owner who's afraid of the second Apron and wants to shed talent and is looking for picks and clean books and the jazz have all that, Like, I know that can happen but the fact of the matter is you can't rely on that, and so from my prism and my seat, the only way to do this is slow and long and hard, and hope you get a little luck around, you know, just at some point, hope you get some lottery luck, or hope Cody's better
than we think, or Keyante learns to shoot straight, or
whatever all those variables are. But make no mistake, this is a tough ask on the fan base, it's a tough ask on broadcasters to call games, and it's really tough on young players who up to this point have always been the best at what they do where they've been and most of them have probably won high school state championships, played high level aau, did something in college with great success, and now they're getting their heads kicked in every night.
What's the danger in that?
Yeah, well there's there are a lot of factors there. But you also have to throw in how it affects the coaching staff for sure, for sure, and the young coach that that the Jazz have, and Will Hardy, who by all accounts is very, very studious, a very hard working guy. You know, he's trying to formulate a forge. I should say, a career early in his coaching career by being a head coach in his mid thirties, and he's got a team that's that's in this situation, and
that's tough on him. He's got to be questioning himself night in and night out about you know, the things he's doing. Is he doing the right stuff? Is he handling it the right way?
Uh?
Is he balancing minutes? Is he is he doing what the front office wants him to do? And in playing guys in certain positions to to help in their their development and and uh projection as NBA players. I mean, there's so many levels to it. Uh, and and yet
the losing permeates the locker room bigger than anything. And and the more the bigger the hole you dig early in the year, the tougher it becomes because you realize as a group, as you as the as the year evolves, as it goes on, you become more and more cognizant and accepting of the of the no that we're not going anywhere with this group at this time. We have a game tomorrow night, we have a game on Thursday.
We have two games on the you know, whatever it is, and you're looking at it when you have a losing record and you're at the bottom looking up and you realize we're not going anyway now. It takes it to another level where the players have to have that mental stamina to want to be able to keep coming every day to practice, to try and get better, to try and show how they can contribute to a winning effort.
The coaching staff is trying to figure out, you know, how do we keep everybody engaged night in and night out, you know, without losing guys along the way. From a mental perspective, a buy in perspective, that is the difficult part, and especially in an eighty two game NBA season, that when you dig a hole early, it is so hard to get out of and it is so much effort just to try and bring the group along with you, you know, on the journey that that you're you're in
the middle of it is. It is a tough ask, and when you're younger and you don't have the experience, it's even more so because those kind of things can really get embedded in you in terms of how your career is going to evolve as well.
So let's dig into you know, I always enjoy listening to coaches, right, So, so why I still love listening to Hube Brown if he's on a call of a game.
I thought Jeff was the best.
It's so crazy to me that ESPN claim that they didn't want to bring him back because they heard he wanted to get back into coaching. Then they hired Doc who left him like three weeks later. Then they hired Reddick, who's coaching the Lakers. So like Doug Collins on the on the broadcaster Steve Kerr, you know, like whenever I can listen to a coach, I like to listen to coaches, and Will has been really interesting to listen to after games because he doesn't say that as the kids would
say the quiet part out loud per se. But he is speaking now in a different way that he's spoken over the past couple of years, saying things like, well, eventually we need to get to where we want to be, and if we're ever going to get there, we can't lean on excuses for now, Like he is speaking in a future tense way after games that he hasn't prior to. But ultimately, knowing coaches and you got to know the best that we add to the two best that we
had here in Frank and Jerry. If you got Will in an honest moment, what do you think he'd say? This has to be eating him alive. They don't have a prayer, they don't have a chance. He doesn't have the tools, he does not have the players, I wondered, Look, they picked up his fifth year option, okay, meaning it's two years of options that are picked up.
This is your three. He's safe next year, he's safe the year after.
But if this thing doesn't get turned around, he's gonna have a resume with a lot of losses on it.
And coaches don't love that.
That's right, and and and that's the hard part for him and his career. He's trying to build a career. He's trying to show, you know, the rest of the league and the basketball world you know that, Hey, I know what I'm doing, and you know, I can learn as I go along, and I can get better, and I know how to manage players, and I know how to you know, deal with in game strategies and all those kinds of things that go into coaching, uh, being
a head coach. But when you have a group like this and a group that's struggling, and you can tell there's going to be a long road that that weighs on you mentally, and that's the biggest thing is trying to keep your perspective. He's not coming from a background where, uh say, I don't know who who maybe maybe JB.
Bickerstaff, who's the coach in Detroit.
Now they have a they have a team that's simil to the Jazz, a young team that's going to struggle for a while that they're trying to build up. But JB has a track record in the past, especially the last job he had in Cleveland where he did very well and and and you can see he's got that that the experience, he's got those games under his belt as a head coach for several years in the league.
Their people know, Okay, he knows what he's doing. He's just got to get some players and got to massage some stuff and move some pieces around and eventually we're going to be on that track. Will Hardy doesn't have that luxury at the current moment because this is his first head coaching job. So he's coming in and he's first year, they struggle, second year, they struggle, third year, they're just beginning, but they're out of the gate.
Stumbling to begin with.
He's wondering how people are looking at him and how how he's being affected in terms of his career, because I'll tell you, there are a lot of guys who got their their one shot at being a head coach and it didn't work well. People respected them, they thought they were very good at what they did. They liked their work ethic, they liked their temperament, they liked their approach to the job. Didn't have success mainly because you didn't have players, and they lasted three years or four
years with their teams. They got to let go and then you never see him again as a head coach. They recycle back into the thing as assistant coaches, and because they're they're well respected within the circles of the coaching fraternity and by by teams and organizations around around the league. But sometimes they don't get another shot because of that, because they don't have anything on their resume to show, hey, I've proven that I can do this right.
So Will Hardy is in that tough position because, yeah, he's got a couple more years to ride with this group. At least you hope he gets more than that, because he looks like he's the right guy, and you just hope he can hold on in terms of his approach, in terms of what he's dealing with as a head coach, night in the night out, not winning, not winning, not winning,
and that it doesn't beat him down. Because to turn this around, your right spence the draft, if you get a free agent, okay, if you make a trade, okay, those are the three ways that you can improve your team. Those are the things you can control to some extent. But there's another component we always talk about that is beyond your control, that you don't You have no say
and what's gonna happen. But something might present itself, as you mentioned a minute ago, and you have to be prepared to react to that, whether it's again another team trying to unload a big time player or trying to unload a salary or something something. But you don't know if that's gonna happen this year before the trade deadline. You don't know if it's gonna happen next year. You don't know if it's gonna happen anytime in the next
five years. Because those are things that are beyond your control. So you don't know if Golden State's gonna hang it up and want to move some guys at some point, if the Clippers get get frustrated.
And want to move some guys, or you know, whoever it is.
And those are the things that are hard for fans to accept because they they assume that you as an organization, as an ownership, have control of everything. You just have to push the right buttons and make the right moves. But there is an element out there that are things that are not within your control that you have to be able to react to and be able to make decisions on if and when they become available. And that's the big gray area. It's always hanging over you that
you never know if and when that's gonna happen. Okay, So yeah, and I like, you know, you know Spence right there that that was a perfect no, that was a perfect take, because that that that frustrated exhales It is exactly what it is.
That's that's what they're going through. You know.
It's it's tough. Uh, it's not pretty. Nobody likes it. The room is always heavy, okay, whether it's practice, whether it's on the team, bus, whether it's on a road trip like they're on now, because you're trying to find some ray of light that tells you, hey, where we can turn this around. We can get better. We need to group together three or four or five games where we feel like, you know, we're.
Clicking, we're doing something at the moment. And it's early.
Okay, it's only six games in okay, but the early returns, like the elections or are not probably what it's going to be. But if you want to hang your hat on something, you're looking at seeing the Jazz are still a very bad defensive team.
They're a team that so far can't shoot the ball. Okay.
They're also a team that doesn't seem to be really well connected, you know, with each other when they're on the floor. They don't have any kind of identity. So when you're dealing with all of those things at the same time, that that is a tough get. Because sometimes you might have one of those and you can concentrate on that area and try and shore it up somehow.
But when you get all of those happening simultaneously and you're trying to juggle all those balls in the air at the same time, it is tough to do and it's tough to manage.
So since you brought up the election, is it possible just to say the final score is incorrect and we won and just claim the win.
Well, I mean, yeah, well, well apparently I don't know what the other option is. Well, apparently you can because apparently no matter what the scoreboard says, you said, well they're wrong.
You know, like, that's that's not right.
We news, we won.
We won the game. Let's just do it. Yeah, so I know what's going on there.
So let's dig into the six and oh, utah jazz.
All right, so six And.
Hey, I wasn't there. I didn't see the score. You know, don't come at me.
So I'm gonna draw a parallel here because the fact of the matter is, and you're one of the reasons we are spoiled as jazz fans. We've never won a championship, but we've rarely had bad teams, and when we did, it didn't last long because the front office iterations you were a part of, always made good moves to get
us back to competitiveness pretty quick. The last time it was this bad was probably Tie's final year, right, And as you were describe me as a coach who gets an opportunity and the roster isn't great or whatever, and it goes sideways and that coach never gets another opportunity. Tyrone Corbyn's name popped into my head, and obviously, you know Scotty hired.
Him in New York. You've known him forever. He's the sweetest guy on world.
And Dennis didn't like when I said that when I would use this line on air, because he heard me say it, I was of the opinion the Dennis Lindsay's first day on the job.
Was Tyrone Corbyn's last. I just didn't think he was going to rehire him.
And so you know, obviously, players like al who played well here Paul Millsap, who is still a jazz legend, moved off some vets in the name of seeing what you had with youngsters. But that roster is much better than the roster that we're dealing with here. That's why it's a loose parallel. So the rookies were Trey Burke and Gobert. Alec was in his second year, Hayward was in his third, Favors was in his third.
Yet players like Jeremy Evans.
You know, then you bring in vets like Richard Jefferson and Andra Spidron's just to pay somebody to play for you and ultimately you want twenty five games that year. But that year was about bringing Marvin Williams, who obviously was a pro while he was here, but that year, Smittye was about, right, like what do we have in Gordon?
Is this roody thing real? And as Canter was on the team, so you had five or six young players like they have now that you were trying to do your calculus like can they be part of this moving forward when we're back to competitiveness, will they be on the roster? Gordon was obviously fave was as well. The Canter stuff got weird. Rudy was ready to play. You guys move on from Enis. We know the history, but there's some similarities right between thirteen and fourteen and twenty four Yeah.
Sure, yeah, and you're right, that's that's what was happening at that time, you know, the Golden State thing by the way, you know you mentioned Richard Jefferson on just Bedrinch, the rush kid Brandon.
Russian than Russia was part of that.
But that was you know when you look, if you looked at it, you would see that that was probably in NBA Annals, the most lopsided trade ever made in NBA history. Because the Jazz got those guys who were all on expiring contracts. That's the reason that that the Jazz took them in at that time. Uh, they were gonna they were gonna have that money available the next year.
They took that with several draft picks with it to trade for uh, the the Murray kid, Kevin Kevin Murphy, sorry, Kevin Murphy who we had we had drafted the second round the year before all those guys came in, and all the Jazz sent out to Golden State was Kevin Murphy who was then cut. And the whole thing for Golden State was opening up all this space for money so that they could uh uh they could go get
Andrea Gudala. See now, at the time, we thought they were opening up the space to go get uh Dwight How quick are Dwight Howard? Was it Dwight Howard a free agency?
Yeah?
Yeah, I didn't know that that's interesting.
But it was, but it was.
But it ended up being Andrea Gudala was the guy they were trying to target and get after to put together with Curry and Thompson and Green and uh, and then they took off the where they did, right, So that's what they were trying to do.
So the Jazz.
See, so when you when you're in that position like the Jazz were at that time, you make a move, you don't give up anything.
You're giving up a.
Second round guy who maybe wasn't even gonna be on our team the following year. And and you got you got players who are on expiring contracts, You got draft picks, and you also got money. You got three million dollars thrown in the deal from Golden State and and all
of that stuff. You know, it was part of Dennis Lindsay's grand plan to try and open up space and try and move some pieces around and hope that at some point, you know, you can you can jump on something that that's going to help your team, you know, to get forward. Now, what happens in the meantime, Rudy Gobert shows up. Okay, third year, fourth year, Okay, that's what the Jazz now are hoping happens with one of the guys they have on the roster, right, Yeah, who is that?
Who knows who that is? Right?
The Jazz also use one of the draft picks or the draft pic they end up getting from Denver in the trade on draft night we've talked about before they got them Donovan Mitchell, and Donovan Mitchell shows up much quicker, much better, much more impactful than we thought.
He would be right out of the gate.
So we were smart, we were good, we were lucky, whatever label you want to put on, it's more luck than anything else. Yes, And so you have all that stuff going on, and that's what the current Jazz are hoping to do. They're hoping that somewhere along the line, somebody clicks, you get an opportunity like that that falls into your lap that you can take advantage of. And
then and then you keep putting the parts together. The guys they have right now, in my opinion, it looks like they're having trouble connecting with each other, and it looks like they're having trouble just playing with each other. So it doesn't look to me like it's a very good mix of guys. You know, maybe you have some talent, but I'm not sure how well they're playing together. A lot of it also is that a lot of them are in experience and there and they're stumbling over themselves
trying to find their footing. That takes time, and that takes a lot of mistakes that you have to be willing to live through. So that's that's the part that the current jazz are dealing with at this moment, and it's not going to get any easier here in the in the next in the coming months. It's it's it's gonna be a difficult road for them to hope.
Yeah, it's hard.
It is.
And even though I agree with it and think for the first time since you know, Dennis took off and Quinn and everybody took off and they traded everybody, it feels like they're finally doing the thing. I still do not diminish out what a tough ask this is on everybody involved. All Right, somebody, before I set you lose, do you dare give me a utah b y U?
I don't score position?
Do you dare?
Know? You know you know how I know how I sit on those things, and I'll tell you this, you know what I do think. I just think that when I look at it, the roles are reverse from what you thought they were going to be before the season started. Right by U is the undefeated team, the Utah is a team that's muddling around at four and four. It's a perfect scenario for both teams to all of a
sudden do something they haven't done this year. In other words, for Utah to put something together where they have a consistent game offensively all game long. For b YU has had some games where you know, they were treading along and it was you know, maybe we've got to have something happen, and then something good did happen. And that's what happens when you have a special season. The plays break your way when you need them to break your way.
And so is that going to continue to happen for BYU or is this going to be the game where they they finally stumble uh and lose a game.
I'm not sure.
Losing a game for them, you know, in the grand scheme of things, would be the worst thing for them, because maybe it helps them to refocus, you know, on the on the last month of this conference season. And to your point, I think they're still in the driver's seat, you know, with other things that happen to get to the conference championship game, which is all that matters because once you get there, as Utah you know showed the last few years with Rose Bowl games, conference games getting
to Rose Bowl. You know, once you get into that championship game, you know, anything can happen, like DEVI for the for the you again talking about things breaking your way when they played USC in the conference championship game a few years ago, and and uh and Caleb Williams gets hurt in the second quarter and he's stumbling around the rest of the game, and then you takes advantage of it and next thing you know, you wake up next day and they're going to the Rose Bowl. So
so it's gonna be. I think it's gonna be. I hope it's a fun I hope it's exciting. And I hope those of you who are brave enough to go sit in the twenty eighth degree weather or whatever on Saturday night at eleven thirty in the fourth quarter are more stout than I am, because some of us have gotten old and we've gotten soft.
Well, Smitty, I don't blame you at all. Always a pleasure to see you, my friend. We'll see us soon, Okay, thanks man, all right, the great Richard Smith,