For an entire hour.
My buddy Richard Smith on a Wednesday, Smitty, Happy Wednesday.
How are you. Let's turn his mic on.
It probably works better for your ratings, is well.
I mean, as I often say, my Christmas wish as a radio host is the ability to control microphones in the studio.
But that's probably too much to How are you, How are you, buddy?
We're doing great. Yeah, we're doing just a beautiful day outside.
And uh, we had a great Thanksgiving weekend last week, as as I know you did back east and with your family, and uh, you know, it's all good.
Good to be back east. And for you, you.
Spent the holiday vacationing in the happiest place on earth.
This was this was big time spent. It was we were down. We were down to Disneyland for four glorious days.
And I'll tell you what when you're in the middle of Disneyland and I did not know this. This is the first time that Linda and I've ever done this with some friends. But they when you're there, you if you did anything else going out in the world, you would make the assumption. Well, I guess in the United States they don't have the traditional family get together around the table at home. Now anymore, everybody just goes to Disneyland, just jam packs. Oh it was wall to wall people. Yeah,
and it was. But the weather was good and we had a fun time. It was a different experience for us. And yeah, yeah, we had a lot of fun. It was great.
So we'll get to the Jazz in a moment, because my goodness. But I wanted to ask you this today, and you know, I want to be very clear here. I don't know what coach Wait is going to do. I just feel like, because there has been no official announcement, it leads me to believe he's coming back. I mean, right now, it's early signing day. They're so busy with recruiting and transfer portal and such. I think if he was going to step aside, we would know by now.
But I wonder if you could illuminate us a little bit. What are some of the things you kind of balance out when you know, you saw a lot of coaches come and go, and when you're in admittedly the late fall, early winter of your career, what are some of the things you balance out when you want to decide whether or not you want to keep going.
Yeah, when you have a year like the youths had this year. I think the most important thing for them is to be able to step back and and and take a deep breath and and get a little perspective.
On on what happened.
You know, when you were in the middle of that that tornado that they were in and that downhill slide in the in October and November. Uh, you know, a lot of things come at you and and you have a lot of different thoughts about any time anything goes wrong,
it's it's just exacerbated and and overblown. So when you get to the end of the season, you want to be able to step back and and and step away from it for a little bit and try and and and get away and just clear your head and kind of look at it for what it what it really was, without all of that drama that that you were in the middle of. And I agree, I tend to agree
with you, Spence. I don't know anything about anything regarding UH coach Whittingham and his thoughts and and and the program going forward, but it just feels like if they were if it was gonna be something around the deal of him leaving, that they probably would have done it already early this week, just to cut it clean and let everybody know, Hey, so don't bother us again.
We'll give you some more updates kind of thing.
And uh, it just you know, But then again, maybe he's you know, maybe he's off on some uh some island somewhere for a week, you know, trying to get his head clear. I'm sure with the with the early signing date and all that, they're probably you know, just the opposite, with their heads down and in the office trying to get those kinds of things locked down for their program.
But but it.
Just it feels like to me also that that just as a fan, that that you probably would have heard something else if there was something in that regard going on. So my my gut also tells me that when the dust settles, there won't be there won't be anything. They'll just be business as usual and they'll be looking for an offensive coordinator obviously, and then just going on with that would be my guess.
Yeah, and I'm with you there. And Kyle also doesn't strike me as a wishy, washy guy. I mean, he seems to be a pretty pragmatic person, where like if he knew he was going to leave. I think he just would have told everybody and then moved on right to whatever's next. But you do have some context with college coaches that you know over the years that have just elected to not deal with the new reality of college athletics. And we've seen examples in college football. Nick
Saban's the biggest one. Others too, Tony Bennett, who won a national championship right before the year.
It's like, yeah, you know what, I don't think I want to deal with this.
So while I do believe Kyle's coming back, part of me wouldn't blame him if he's like, you know what, this is a new game. It's not the game that I signed up to coach. It's not the business that I signed up to lead. Because as a college football coach, you're a CEO. You're not just a coach. There are so many layers, and yes, now a lot of them have general managers and guys that can help him out
run the program. But the new reality of college athletics seems to have really struck a lot of these old school coaches in a way where some of them just don't want to deal with it.
Yeah, well that happened, I know last week with Mac Brown in North Carolina, a longtime coach and won a national championship when he was at Texas. Has had two successful stints at the University of North Carolina as they head football coach, but they they decided to let him go last week before their their final game with NC State, and then they had the game with their and they
and they lost. And in this postgame press conference, he said, yeah, I'm done, and he goes, this isn't and he made reference to just the whole thing in general, not just his his situation, but when he said, this isn't. This isn't the game that I signed up for, you know, way back when this is it's all different now, and so this is probably a good timing for everybody and for me to to exit stage left, and and for
them to, you know, to bring in somebody else. And hey, Jay Wright did it last year, right, and he had won two national championships, and we know our good friend up the road, Randy Ray got out a Weaver State a couple of years earlier than he had originally planned in terms of his career plans because he just thought, you know, he saw this, all this stuff coming and
said I don't want to. I don't want to deal with this, and especially at a place like Weaver State, which is a mid major, which you know is gonna have trouble competing with nil kinds of stuff, you know, with with the biggest programs and and that kind of thing. So I'm surprised that that we don't see more of the coaches. I guess you know, when you're in it, you you like what you're doing, and it changes and you have to adapt and and Coach Witt said this, I know in one of.
His recent press conferences that hey.
Whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, whether it works for you or not, you know, the bottom line is if you're in in the business, then you just have to adapt and figure out how to.
Make it work to the best of your your ability.
And so that's something that that you know, probably uh would come into play if you were to make some decision to uh, you know, to get out now, you know, just because all of that has changed, and it seems spence that it's evolving and changing all the time, like
there's not a set path that everybody's going down. It's always diverging, it's always going left or right, and uh, different things are happening, and the you know, the transfer portal, and and I heard on the OC's show earlier they're talking about just the and with You with Bill Riley just in the last segment about the the the early signing day and the fact that it really doesn't carry as much impetus or weight now as it used to with fans in the media in general, because how much
does it matter because the kid, the kid says, yeah, I'm signing with you. Tah, yeah, thanks a lot, okay, okay, and then a month from now he says, oh, I changed my mind. I'm going to USC instead, you know, like they can do that, and so it really doesn't matter.
And and so.
That's the hard part I would think the coaches are dealing with is is how do we get somebody, how do we then hold on to them? Because there's really not a contractual type situation at this time in college at college athletics where you can get a commitment and then have it be binding and have to have someone have to stay like you do in the professional ranks where you sign contracts.
Yeah, and you know, we had a guest on yesterday named Matt Brown, who writes a college football newsletter called Extra Points, and Matt is a very bright guy who essentially creates content to help people understand the new business of college football. Like college football issues off the field, and right now, it's it's it's pretty crazy that essentially the nil contracts or whatever you want to call them, are created by legal teams from member institutions. There's no uniformity,
there's no governing body. So University of I'm not saying they're doing this, but the University of Utah could have their legal team put together a contract for a player to sign and essentially say, hey, there's a stipulation in this contract that you can't transfer for a couple of years or whatever. And the player can, you know, give them a double bird and go down and sign a
BYU because BYU doesn't have that stipulation. For me, Smitty, every issue that keeps popping up with collegiate athletics can be solved with one thing, and that is moving into the pro model, allowing the players to unionize collectively bargain with the powers that be.
The problem is who are the powers that be? Right now?
Like football wants to break away from the NCAA. But the problem is there's so much red tape between here and there in that finish line. University presidents aren't interested in having their athletes be employees because of all those implications. I still believe that's the one solution, though. Do you think people would have an issue at this point? Doesn't feel like they would have an issue because there's so
many problems. But you think the people that consume collegiate athletics would have an issue if they just unapologetically leaned into the pro model.
Well, I think that.
I don't think the fans are going to have a problem with it as long as your your team gets the guy that they want. I mean, but you know what's interesting is I saw I think a couple weeks ago, uh one of the ESPN broadcasters had done a recent game with Williams and Amherst uh Division three football programs back in Massachusetts, the you and I are familiar with, and they don't have scholarships, they don't have all this kind of you know, n I L kind of stuff
going on at that level. He said, he went, went, was part invited to the game, went and did the game. UH saw experience that on the small college level. And then afterwards the you know, the team from from Williams. When they win, they have a in that big ival regame. They have all the whole team marches up the hill that goes through campus, go through town, and and everybody rallies around them. And he said it was such a
great old style collegiate experience. And you know, I wonder if if at some point, you know, fans will go, well, yeah, well I can go to Utah games, I can go to BYU games. But you know, these guys are just you know, they're they're getting paid like money, and they getting paid more than I work at my job, and their eighteen year old kids playing basketball or playing wide receiver on the football team, whatever it is. And I don't know how much interest I have in that, especially
if they keep raising my ticket prices. I'll just go to watch the guys over at Westminster play play basketball, right, Or yeah, I'll go out to Soli Community College and watch the the the women's softball team, which is you know, highly competitive and all that kind of stuff, and and get my fixed that way. It's really it's really going
to be interesting. I think, Uh, what's gonna happen. Is when as this continues, UH, with the nil stuff and the money that's involved with with a student athletes, it how it affects your ticket prices and how it affects you actually attending games, UH, is gonna be a big deal because you know, this year, trying to go to Utah football games is was was really really astounding to me the prices that you were looking at to try
and go to a game. And that's what one game and and they have a lot of people who are paying season ticket prices and and seat licenses and and UH and that kind of stuff and Crimson Club dues and all those those kind of things. At some point, there's a saturation point where the fan is gonna say that's enough.
I'm not I'm out.
You know, unless your team runs a table, has a year like b YU had in football, right, Otherwise, if you're middling around, it's really going to be tough to hold on to the fan base that you have.
All right, let's move over to some NBA stuff, And I have a big picture NBA topic before we get into some jazz stuff. And I'm really interested to get your take because the highest rated television NBA Finals nineteen ninety eight.
You were there, I was there.
Jazz Bowls at its peak, it was essentially thirty five point eight million viewers that Sunday night game, which is a twenty two point three rating, So thirty five point eight nine million viewers is a massive, massive number. The highest rated NBA Finals game from last year was Game four Celtics MAVs nine excuse me, eleven point four to three million viewers. That's the highest rated game and we're
talking about nineteen million less. And to be fair, the highest rated NBA Finals, which was Jazz Bowls, Jordan's last dance, all that stuff. And during the mid to late nineties, pro basketball never passed the NFL, but it was throwing punches with it. There was a legitimate debate like what's the most popular sport in America?
Is it basketball or football?
And while football was the answer, then continues to be the answer.
Now the gap is huge. The other night one point nine mil for.
The TNT, that was the biggest number TNT pulled the other night one point nine mil. That's down seven percent year over year. Why do you think people are tuning out NBA basketball games? Why do you think the ratings are dipping so hard.
Well.
I think a couple of reasons spens right on the surface. One is that there are so many other options now and the generation now that's younger than we are being brought up with accessibility to anything they want, any time they want online and streaming services. So getting people to focus in on one thing, you know, like an NBA game, even if you're a basketball fan, you have so many
other outlets and so many other options to do. Unless there's something that's really compelling at that moment to attract your attention, You've got all these other things that you can go and spend your time doing. Another reason I think personally is that I don't think the the NBA game is very attractive.
Right now to to the average fan.
I think it's all, yeah, I'm watching the game last night and I was counting the number of possessions where where both teams were running running a half court offense, and there wasn't one player anywhere near the lane. Everybody was out on the perimeter and it's all drawn kick and it's all you know, long range shooting, and people
can't shoot very well. That's why the guys who can shoot, whether to Kevin Durant, you know, or Ray Allen his day, or guys like that Steph Curry, who are good shooters. That's why they stand out so much, because most guys can't shoot. But what happens Spence, they do shoot all right, because that's what the last night I saw several times.
I was kind of keeping track of my head. How many times I thought that they took a three point shot what we used to phrase by default, meaning that I was there, I can take this shot, or I can work for a better shot. There's still nine seconds on the shot clock, but there's a defender near me. But I'm being lazy and it doesn't really matter. So here it goes and just jack it up. And nobody wants to watch that stuff because it looks lazy, in large part because it is lazy and the players don't
work as hard. That's why the announcers last night, you know, kept harping on the fact that Oklahoma City was playing very well, especially on the defensive end, because there are hard nosed defensive team who sticks to their principles and shows it by the way that they play.
They force you to do things.
We talked about this and one of our earliest segments as if you're a good defensive team, you want to try and be the protagonists. In other words, you want to try and dictate to the offense what they're doing. That's what Oka Se did last night to the Jazz, which resulted in the Jazz having twenty nine turnovers, which resulted in forty five points off turnovers for okay See.
The Jazz actually shot a better percentage than Oka See did for the game from the floor, but the fact was they couldn't hold onto the ball, and they couldn't hold onto the ball because of the pressure of Okac's defense, coupled with the fact that the Jazz are a sloppy at sometimes lazy ball handling team, and they called it they're sometimes.
They're their own worst enemy.
How many times last night did they drive into traffic and just stumble around and the ball came out the other way on a fast break for OKC. But I think to answer your question, the fans of finding other things to do, I think they don't really like the product as much of the NBA that they're seeing nowadays, with dollus five out and none in stuff and people just jacking up shots and a lot of one on one kinds of stuff, and I think they're finding other ways to spend their time.
Yeah, the Warriors Calves era, the Lebron versus Steph era, the ratings were pretty healthy, you know, they approached seventeen eighteen, nineteen mil nothing has touched ninety eight when Jordan was in his last year in John and Carl, and they were so compelling. And I hate to be the old guy that yells into the microphone, but there was just
something about that era of basketball. And maybe I'll come out of from a selfish perspective with my background of the Jazz and the Knicks when both those teams were so fun and compelling in the nineties. I don't know if it's production value, I don't know if it's characters.
I don't know if it's protagonists antagonists. There was something so compelling about nineties NBA basketball, and even me as a basketball junkie and somebody who will watch random games on a random Tuesday night, all tune in and it's like I want to take the dog for a walk, you know, like there's just something about it that is not as compelling as it was when I was growing up in the nineties.
Well, and I.
Think Spencer again to date ourselves, right, you're talking about games are almost thirty years ago, so you're talking about a different generation, and you're talking about all the things that happened between then and now relative to access of information through the Internet and laptops and your phone and all those kinds of things. It's interesting that nowadays, what does the NBA do? What have they done for a while?
They they market the star players and they hope that you will tune in on the Tuesday night to see Kevin Durant, you know, go up against Lebron James. Oh oh they're both out tonight. Oh that's right. Oh they're not playing, you know, for whatever the reasons. And so you know, there goes your hook if you're the NBA. It's it's just that there are a lot of games there. There's a lot of content, and there's a lot of that's successible to the fan. If you're a basketball fan.
How many college games were on last night? How many you are on tonight? You know that you think, well, maybe I'd rather watch that instead.
It's just it's just a different era.
And and look, another part of that equation for me when you're talking about peeling back the layers. Is that when you look at you look at the bench of any team in the NBA now, and they've got more guys in pullovers than they have in uniforms. Right, So they've got seventeen coaches and analytics guys and whoever, whoever.
Those guys aren't doing whatever it is they're doing, and the end of product on the floor is not any better, And you could argue that it's worse, you know, And so you wonder what that equation is and how that fit factors into everything.
One more thing, we'll catch a break. We'll do our second segment pretty jazz centric. Do you think this NBA cup idea? And I want to be clear, like I applaud the effort. I applaud and I respect trying to do something different, I really do. I think the NBA does that as well as any league. The NFL doesn't have to adjust anything right there top of the mountain. Major League Baseball might bring a golden bat to the equation.
I'm not sure if you've heard about that, but the NBA really tries to be forward facing and progressive with some changes. If things aren't working, it just seems to the courts are weird, players are slipping. Do you think at some point this will reverberate and maybe prove the interest level during the regular season.
Well, I think one of the.
Things is that they're trying Spenser, and it's gonna take a little while for for people to look onto it. But it's the the whole Cup thing to try and get interest in. Uh in November and December, in the early months of the season, when when you're struggling to get get attention from from fans and and especially in the TV viewing and uh, and what what's part of the approach you're taking now is what you saw last night?
And okay, see with an all blue floor and and and every team is trying to come up with the new thing that looks cleaner and sharper and hipper on TV and whatever. The product is still the same, you know, the the eight teams, Uh, they're they're gonna go into the quarterfinals next week of the Cup. You know, all four teams in the West are different than they were last year, so that those fans get pulled into it a little bit, you know, and and uh, and then
they have the whole Vegas vibe with it. At the end, you know where they'll be playing the Semis and the final four, so to speak, in in Vegas in a few weeks.
You know, will it hold? I I don't know.
It's it's it's better than that than than just playing the games. I guess in early season when people aren't paying attention, I think it's the teams that make it. Now to these uh one and done games over the
next couple of weeks, those fans will be interested. The other fans now, like the Jazz fans for example, couldn't care less what's going on with the NBA Cup because they're not in it, right, So they get a couple of games and and uh next week they're rescheduled and all that, and they and you move on.
So, yeah, trying something new, is it? Is it hooking people? I don't know.
I guess they'll they'll have TV ratings that will tell you whether it did or not. I don't know, you know, it's you know, for me, I understand what they're trying to do. It's I think again, it's it's it feels somewhat to level, like a gimmicky type thing. You know that we're trying and see if it if it hooks or not?
All right?
Coming up next with you a jazz centric segment with Smitty. I want to get his take on a conversation that we've had all week about the potentially most exciting prospect of the six young players, first and second year players. We'll see if he agrees with a take that was handed out on the show this week. Smitty Today brought to you by Advanced Window Products, the number one rated
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one eight five zero ninety one hundred. Richard Smith live in studio forty years with the Utah Jazz front office. He's gonna bring in Howard Beck today. We made a little bit of a pivot. Zach Harper is busy, one of my favorite riders, the hippiest NBA rid out there.
Howard Beck from the Ringer.
And then Ali Mata, who is a player for the Utah Hockey Club, just was called up to represent his homeland of Finland.
He'll be playing some hockey for Finland.
So interviewed Dolli before Really nice kids, stay tuned hockey fans. That comes your way in about an hour from right now. Oh, smitty, smitty smitty. As we've talked about before, and as I readily admit, we are spoiled basketball fans in this market, and part of it is your fault. And the front office you worked for always seem to put a very good product on the.
Floor, with very very few exceptions.
Now, there were some exceptions, but Scott Lane and Kevin O'Connor Dennis Lindsay found their way out of what i'll say, poor to mediocre basketball very quickly. Oh, by the way, before we do, I can't believe I buried the lead. Paul millsap retired. Yes, now, I will say I thought he retired two years ago. But when I and I love Paul, who doesn't. But you had a front row seat too, And then we'll get back to the topic that I was just unpacking. But I wanted to ask
you this kind of right off the top. I forgot looking at my notes. Paul caught Jerry's eye as a rookie, which is hard to do, asked Darren Williams. And you know, we were kind of having some fun topically, like where does he exist on the all time great jazz player list if you include his entire career, probably top fifteen, top sixteen ish. He actually if you look at the list,
you know, but that's a different topic. What was that like to watch Paul kind of evolve and how would you characterize what he meant to some of those really really good jazz teams.
Well, you know, it was interesting with Paul when we when the Jazz drafted him, he was we got him in the middle of the I think it's the number forty seven pick, in the middle of the second round. And he came in that summer league, he did okay, you know what was anything special, came into training camp, he was you know, really uh, you know, in all honesty in terms of our group, was just another guy there. You know, is he gonna is he gonna make the cut?
Is he not gonna make the cut? And we're gonna have him on the team, and we not, you know, And it was kind of a debate, like and it was really kind of you know, a lot of shrugging shoulders like whatever, you know, you want him, you don't want him, whatever. And then and then I remember and in the last meeting, we had to make a decision yes or no to have him on the team that
had that rookie year. And and it was coach Sloan who just said, I kind of like him, and uh, we said, what do you like, coach, And you go, well, you know, he seems to work hard, and he kind of, uh, he kind of does this a little bit, and you know, does that. And then he said no for the ball he said, but you know, probably maybe his best attribute at the moment is, uh, I don't even know what his voice sounds like, because because I heard him say one thing, and and and and uh so, so Jerry
goes and only the way Jerry could he goes. So so that's pretty good, you know. And so he was saying, you know, well, let's keep him because we don't have to listen to him complain or anything, you know. Okay, yeah, all right, whatever you want to do. And then you know, and Paul was was a good worker. Uh but he
but he was a very quiet guy. And at that time, of course, he came in and he's behind Carlos Boozer, who was an All Star level player, Olympic level player for US, and and he had to wait his time. But he just worked hard and and and developed uh you know, enough of an outside game, uh that that could compliment his mid post game and his ability to rebound. And that was the thing that struck us when we, uh when when the just drafted him, was that he had led the nd n C A A in rebounding
all three years that he was at Louisiana Tech. And that's one of the skills usually Spence. You look at UH on prospective players. That's the one area where typically you can make a correlation that that's going to translate to the NBA level without without much of an interruption. Is your ability to go get the basketball, UH, you know, off the rim and UH and Paul made himself into a better player. He was a fourt time All start when he was in Atlanta. You know, in Atlanta had
some very good teams when he was there. And UH was just a really good guy to have on your team. Because even even when he when he got quote good and he and he was a regular rotation guy and then he was a starter, and then he went to Atlanta and became an all star level guy. You know, he was still the same approach every day, just you know, the old Jerry Sloan phrased a lunch bucket guy just bring his lunch pail and and go to work and
not say much. And you know, I know he had stopped playing a couple of years ago, and I think it came out today probably because the way the NBA works, you can stop playing, but you can not officially retire like forever. Yeah, you know, you have to put in if you want the retirement benefits and all the stuff that comes with retirement and pensions.
And all that.
At some point you have to submit the proper paperwork to the NBA. I'm guessing that's why this this came out, you know, the last few days. It's probably because they probably decided to put his paperwork in after the last couple of years of maybe sitting out the sidelines waiting to see if you got a last minute call from somebody in a playoff type run.
Yeah, more of a role player for you guys early on, and then after Booze bounced and Darren was traded. He was kind of a main cog with those Al Jefferson years, you know, seventeen points eight boards in twenty ten, played all eighty two three of first four years for you guys, but didn't start mini games up until kind of the second iteration.
But he reinvented himself after he left here.
Were you surprised to watch him shoot like thirty eight percent from three and kind of expand his horizons after he left the Jazz.
Yes, yeah, I mean, but that's you know, to his credit. You know, that was something that that the coaches talked to him. About and about being able to get be a little more versatile with his offense and be able to step out.
And he was willing to do it.
And he had enough of a touch, you know, shooting wise in the free throw line that he could extend it out a little bit. And again, it wasn't a high volume, but it was you know, him taking smart shots. And most of the time he was a kind of player who would who would just go with the flow of what was happening in the game. In otherwids, he didn't force shots. So most of those kind of three point shots that he would get would be open shots on the weak side or the defense would sink in
that'd swing it. He got it, had a lot of space, you know, got into a nice little easy rhythm, and was able to knock down enough that that made you know, defenders honest against him. And then that's set up his ability to go a couple of dribbles into the mid lane and get something there, and you know, but he was willing to do that, and that's the kind of guy he was. He was, you know, a little bit like Carl uh in that he was always willing to
look at adding something to his game. And trying to diversify it that would make him, you know, keep him on the floor more and and get him more opportunities.
So, look, fifty years of jazz hoops has bread a lot of simple, simply very loyal jazz fans. Right Like we were talking about this through the Utah Hockey Club prism, the novelty appears to have worn off, and the past couple of home games there's it's not as full as it was opening night when I was there first couple of games. And some of it's gonna pend depend on opponent,
because we do have hockey fans who live here. But if you go to Utah Hockey Club games, and if they're playing like the Avalanche, you see out of Avalanche jerseys. So for the Utah Hockey Club to consistently draw people to sell out the building, they're gonna have to be really good, really quickly, like the Vegas Golden Knights were, or it's just going to take a number of years like I did with the jazz, very lean years early
saulve Palace, shout out jazz band, all the things. But fifty years of jazz basketball has b read a lot of loyal jazz fans, and there have been so many really really good teams and exciting teams, never over the hump to win a championship. And this is a tough ask, even for loyal Jazz fans. This is as bad of a team as we've ever had here, and maybe the worst team that we've ever had here. So what do you make of And look, the problem is, and you
and I both know this. Of course this is by design, but we can't turn on a mic and say, hey, they're trying to lose.
We'll talk to you tomorrow. We have to kind of unpack it a little bit.
It is a tough ask of a community to show up night in and night out and road games, turn on your television.
Yes we're a cold weather city.
You want something to do at night, you turn out a Jazz game, go to Jazka And I get all that, but there has to be some sort of pushback from a lot of fans who are watching this product night in and night out and say, what are we doing here?
You know what I mean?
Yeah?
Sure, well I think what's what's happened? I think the first couple of years here of the of the Ryan Smith and his group ownership group. Uh, taking control of the team from the Miller family. Uh. They've made a lot of changes obviously, if they've made changes all the way across the board, you know, with the team itself, with the coaching staff, the front office, the building, the uniforms.
I mean, they've changed everything from A to Z that they can think of, trying to get it younger, trying to get it hipper, trying to get it more mod you know, whatever, whatever the approach, marketing approach is. And I think some of that, you know, fans have bought into oh okay, yeah, okay, we're trying to get Oh that's that's kind of change out.
It's kind of new okay and.
And uh and and but now they're they're right near that that point I believe where during the third year of doing this and you know, the team is not look like.
It's getting any better, they've any worse.
They've invested a lot while they've invested a lot in in young guys, and that's that's the route they've chosen to go for whatever their their rationale is. They believe they can build that up. They've got to hit on the right draft picks, you know, the you know, we we just played a team last night, and okay, see, they're showing how you can do it if you hit the right guys, uh and add guys in, and how you can rebuild a team that they did that when they had the the Paul George fiasco and and had.
To move on from that and kind of bottom down.
Then you see what the Houston Rockets have done once they moved on from James Harden and Westbrook and Chris Paul and now they've they've bottomed out and now they've they've got a nice competitive team, young guys, and they and they've had several good draft picks. And that's what
the Jazz are trying to do. You know, the the you know, uh, several of the top five, six, seven teams in the NBA right now if you include okay, see, if you include Houston as a young team, if you include the Orlando Magic, all these teams were bottom feeders spens three, four or five years ago, and they've all built up by drafting smartly and and and and putting together a roster that makes sense. The Jazz are trying to do that. They've got a bunch of draft picks
they're trying to play. There are a bunch of guys who who in my opinion, the way I look at them when they're playing, I think, well, these guys, they're supposed to be doing this at the G League. They're supposed to be throwing the ball up in the third row in a G League game, not in an NBA game. But they're they're force feeding them, They're they're making them play against NBA guys.
They they think that.
That's gonna that's gonna get them, you know, hardened and and develop quicker. In all of that, that remains to be seen. The guys they have I don't think again in my opinion, that it's a good mix of guys. I don't like the just how they play off each other or don't play off each other. The defensive end is very worrisome to me because the defensive they just have not gotten any better from last year to this year. Statistically, they're in the same they're bottom five in all these
different categories. And you watch them last night. They play defense. The defense is very lazy. And I'll give you two examples from last night that really struck out of me. The last play of the first half, they come down Okay, see as the ball. They're walking it up the floor to get the last shot with like fifteen seconds left. In the first half. The Jazz don't switch, they don't
match up properly. They've got Walker Kessler guarding Shay Gilgess Alexander for the last player of the first half, and and everybody's just standing around and they're they're leaving Walker Kesseler out on an island and there's no way he can guard that guy who's an MVP level player and wing player, and he just rides up and shoots right over him and he drows up three at the end.
Then in the second half, they're in a in a in a secondary transition and and they're coming back over half court and Kessel's walking looking for someone his guy to guard, and and uh can't they George points to uh Alexander and and just says, you know, like to Walker, hey, you get you get him? And and I go and I'm watching the game. I'm going you get him. You're telling you your seven foot center to go guard the m v P wing player. I said, when you have
time to go get you know? No, no, why is that? My again? My opinion is that they're just lazy, and so hey, you get him. I don't want to have to run another ten feet and go guard the guy I'm supposed to guarding. So you get them and the same thing. And Alexander played around with them. Boom boom between the legs, step in the laying, little step back jumper from the free throw line.
You know how you doing?
That's you know, they're just they look like they're a lazy defensive team. It doesn't look like that they're being called out on it. I'm sure they work on it in practice. I'm sure they drill on it. I'm sure they talk about it, I'm sure they watch film about it. But in the game, they're making the same mistakes, and they're making the same the same errors in judgment. They don't approach it with any kind of urgency, and that's
why you get twenty nine turnovers in the game. I'lbet again against a very good defensive team who caused some of those. But that's because you're you're careless, you're lazy. You don't really have play with that that fortitude that you need to be able to secure the ball, and that leads to forty five point soft turnovers for the other team, you know. And and while that's egregious and that's that's a big example, and maybe you know, but it's not, unfortunately an outlier. That is the type of
thing that's been happening all along. And that's why the Jazz are sitting, you know, with the third worst record in the league at four and seventeen, and with a lot of road games coming up here in December.
So Cody Williams, who's the highest pick they made this last draft, and number ten out of Colorado, get some time early on.
It didn't look great.
It looked well, I'll be honest, it looked bad. He badly needs to get stronger. He's only nineteen years old. He will fill out, he will put on weight. Time will tell what he will be. I'm not ready to annoint or dismiss at all. Taylor goes down will Elects to start Cody, and you're watching, You're like, dude, this is not it's not working. So they send him down to the G League to develop. Now, that's what the
G league is for, So I get it. And to your point, all of these guys, maybe outside of marketing and the Vets could utilize some G League minutes. We'll get to Walker in a minute, who, in fairness has been really, really good. I do want to talk Walker Kessler, But don't you want your top ten pick to show some signs of being ready to at least show that these shows that he at least belongs. I mean, there
there was nothing from Cody at all. And what do you make of the fact that the highest pick they made in the draft last year is now cutting his teeth in the G league.
Well, that's again, that's that's what the game plan that they have for for for these guys that you know, they're bringing him in and they're throwing them to the wolves and they're saying, hey, go figure it out. And uh, you know, with the Williams kid, I don't know. I don't know what he's going to end up being. Maybe he's going to be, you know, a top level player.
Uh.
You know that obviously that that stuff remains to be seen. For me, when I saw him in Colorado last year is one year there in college and what I've seen in a handful of games he's played in in the Summer League, both in Salt Lake and Vegas and then here early part of the NBA season, he doesn't for me, doesn't play with any any sense of urgency, doesn't play with any sense of pop or or toughness. He's yeah,
he's long, he's rangey. Yeah, okay, so what you know, you have to you have to figure out how you use utilize that to your advantage. He had a couple of plays, and by a couple, I mean two or three or four plays in the Summer League action where you said, whoa, now that's good. Now that's you know, okay, took it off the bounds, went by two guys, went up over a third guy, boom and banged it on his head. And okay, that's that's what you want to
see out of those guys. But he doesn't has not shown that, And so that is going to be interesting as you pick it on one guy Spence for a moment, because that is the part of a guy's game that is very hard to develop, and that is that aggressiveness, the tough minded mindset that by the way, his brother has. Now maybe his brother has all of us, I don't know, and uh, and that's the way he plays.
Maybe the Jazz.
Took him thinking, oh, we can develop him to be some some form of his brother, who's we're talking about Jalen Williams who plays for OKAC, who's developed quickly in the NBA as a very good main guy on a team, on a winning team, who makes winning plays. But you haven't seen that from Cody Williams. Kante George has played somewhat okay in spurts for the Jazz. Again, for me, it seems like they're trying to put a round peg in a square hole with him. I don't think he's
a point guard. They seem like they're trying to make him one, or they believe he can be one. I think he can be more more of a small scoring two ala Jordan Clarkson, and then you can cheat with them in games and little spurts by putting him at one when you have other matchups that you want to take advantage of. But having a steady diet of him or a steady diet of like the other young kid. They've got a collier who also had four turnovers last
night in limited minutes. I mean, this is this is what they've set up to do, and they're willing to live with the pain of it. The interesting thing is going to be how they can keep selling that to the fans to say, hey, hey, give us time, give us time, give us time. You know you're gonna see some improvement, because at some point the clock is ticking and you have to see some improvement. You're not asking them to go from a thirty win team to a fifty six win team overnight, but you have to see
some improvement in the way they play. And so far through this experiment, it's it's very hard to hang your hat on anything that you can say, yeah, there's the incremental improvements we're looking for.
Well, and there's also a fine line between young players learning tough lessons and learning bad habits and suddenly this is who you are because I can remember, you know, when Kevin O'Connor, when Booze left for Chicago trade exception Minnesota bringing Al Jefferson and that's when Paul Millsap went
from a bench player to a starter. And look, that team was never going to win the trophy, but it was competitive and it was a playoff team, and I can remember I was on air at that time talking about well, yeah, like, there's nothing wrong with making the playoffs. There's nothing wrong with maximizing your good, Yes, is there a little bit of a dynamic when you're going to be in the middle. Yeah, and at some point you probably do have to break it down in the name
of building it back up, like Dennis did. But what's the danger of seven players under the age of twenty three, who at this point really only know pro basketball is getting their heads kicked in every night? Like, what's the danger in taking this approach?
Well, the one of the dangers is that you get used to it, and there is there's not a lot of accountability for what the end result is. In other words, you know, I make mistakes, I throw the ball out of bounds, I have five turnovers, I have three of them, or or what we would term unforced turnovers. They were
just bad decisions. And then the next day you go back out and you start doing it again, and there's no account of there's no you know, accountability that says your you know, your your your limits, your minutes are gonna be limited, or you're not going to get as many opportunities, or you're gonna have to go to the G League, or you know, whatever whatever it is, and
so those things. At some point, you have a certain level of professional pride that has to come into play where where you don't accept that from yourself as a player, and you determined for yourself, I've got to get better,
I've got to figure this out. Or the other part of it, Spence, is that maybe everyone finds out at some point, oh maybe he's not good enough to do this, and maybe we have to look at Plan B or Plan C or whatever it's going to be because we didn't make the right decision in this regard, if that's if that's what it comes to, but making the same mistake over and over again and not correcting it and not being held accountable for it in some regard, it's
just it's tough to watch. It's tough to understand how a team gets in these positions. But look, SPSSI, the Jazz aren't the only team. There are a lot of teams that deal with this from year to year, and a lot of teams that keep wallowing around. The interesting thing is going to be how long they stick with their game plan and do they really believe in what they've set up to do to be able to stick
with it and work through it. Because these are as we've mentioned before, these are the low times for the Jazz and these are the growing pains, and you know, can it get worse?
I don't know. Maybe maybe it can get worse.
You know, obviously it certainly can get better, and it needs to get better. But how how long that takes to happen and how you go about doing it is going to be interesting. The last night, the second quarter, the Jazz come out of the of their their their time out and their their second uh. Their starting line up for the beginning of the second quarter, mckaylik U Banks, Sensible, juw Zang Collier, stop it. That's that's the Star starting
five in the NBA game last night. That's supposed to be the starting five for the Stars G League team on Saturday night. I mean, come on, are you kidding me? And then I didn't understand this part Spence, and again, maybe they were working on something. Sometimes coaches do this near the end of games that are out of hand. I understand if that was the mindset. I think they were playing a zone for a couple a couple of possessions.
Maybe that's what they were kind of live working. But five minutes left in the game, they're down twenty seven, and they put in their starting five. They put in you know, Collins Kessler Market in Sexton, George. They're in there with five minutes to go on the court down twenty seven. You know, if you're running a developmental thing, I don't know. Maybe they were, they were trying to do the thing with the zone defense or trying to see how these I don't know.
But that's all part of it. But it's hard.
It's hard to explain to fans who are paying money that you know, we're just we're just practicing with this stuff now and we're asking you to pay full price, you know, to uh to watch that live. That's uh that that's a tough sell that they've gotten away with so far, and it's gonna be interesting to see how long it goes on for before there's some you know, kind of pushback from fans to saying, hey, when when are we getting better? When when is this gonna happen?
You know, what do you got for me? You know, because I'm investing my time and money in you, but I don't I don't see what I'm getting out of it.
You know, that's gonna be the interesting part.
If you're a jazz fan and and if you're at the jazz, uh front office and the ownership group.
Will end on a positive note because there's not a lot of positive things to talk about with this current iteration of the Jazz. But I will say Walker has been very good in the fifteen games he's played. He's at eleven points, eleven boards, nearly three block shots, his rim protection as elite. The opponent field goal percentage against him at the rim is not good, which is good for the Jazz. I want to see that free throw percentage job fifty eight percent from the free throw line,
but seventy four percent from the floor. And just looking at him watching him play, he looks bigger, he looks stronger, and I think I would say he's been the main bright spot for me through fifteen games. I mean, one of the debates we keep having is who's going to be here when the Jazz are actually legitimately good and a serious team, serious about winning. Walker seems to have maybe played himself into that conversation throughout the first portion of the season.
What have you seen from Walker? Kestler and I.
Agree with you.
And this is his third year, right, so at the beginning of his third year, he looks like he's developing into a comfort level where he understands what he can do and what they want him to do and not trying to do too much. Right, you know, he's averaging twenty nine minutes a game, averaging eleven points, ten rebounds, almost three blocks. If you were to say, hey, we would take that, we would take that for the next seven, eight, ten years and put that in our lineup and have
our big man do that. Okay, we'll lock that in. Okay, Now we lock in. We've locked marketing in in Okay on a long term deal. So now we got two of those guys that we like that we're comfortable that they're they're gonna be those guys and those positions.
Now we're trying to.
Find out, you know, what the other ones are and where they're coming from.
But I like what he's done.
I like the fact that the game looks like it's slowed down a little bit for him, that he feels comfortable being on the spots that he's in and he's delivering, and he seems to me just to be playing a little more comfortably out there, which is what you want to see. And that's all part of the developmental process.
What we saw on Rudy when Rudy made his incremental progression until it was fourth the year, Well you know when he when he started busting out, and maybe that's what's what's happening with Kessler.
It's beeny great to see you, my friend. Did you have a favorite ride in Disneyland?
Was? Hey, we went on. We went on It's a small world.
That can't be your favorites.
And we broke the ride.
We were sitting there for fifteen minutes because they couldn't figure, and we're going, wait, manute. All these other rides are spinning and jumping and throwing you in the air and doing all this stuff. And we're on the slowest ride that you can be on, and the ride brakes and we're in limbo for for fifteen minutes. But you know, look, I spend my days of going through those things where they're throwing you around and jumping up and down and
you're swinging you around or whatever. I used to enjoy those, but I'm like the fair weather fan going to the game right now.
I can't do those anymore.
I did them, but I realized, okay, I that's exactly right.
Yes, it's as small as as a season Disney vet Smitty.
It's a small world.
Is the ride you take when you need a nap between all the other one.
Thank you very much, Yes, there we go.
Hey, great to see you, okay, I been great. Richard Smith forty years with the Jazz Front off