Next on the drive, Tim McMahon dropping dimes for your NBA daily assists.
Van McMahon, Vanman batted in all Land, Texas flood as tickets mud He's main Ban McMahon, Van mcman The Man.
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Cycle over the past twenty four hours. Our next guest good enough to give us some time. NBA Finals week. Tim McMahon, Happy Tuesday, sir.
How are you, howdy partner? How you doing?
I'm good, I'm good.
So I see let's say, yeah, I see two Jordan elevens. I see two Jordan threes. I see a Jordan four. I think that's a six. I see two Jordan ones. How many how many pairs of shoes are you bringing for this NBA Finals trip of yours?
Yeah, you are looking at ten pairs. There there will be a pair of my feet, then there'll be a pair of running shoes, and there will be some Sabrina one. That's what I'm hooping in these days. I can't wear I can't wear NBA signature shoes, so I guess some sabrinas fair enough.
Best Jordan's.
I did not know you were a sneaker head, and I am a sneaker head in recovery. I have a decent, not great collection, but I don't like to spend six hundred dollars on shoes anymore. So best Jordan's in your opinion, Yeah, I don't spend six hundreds.
I like the threes the best. Yes, I am an old school guy. You know. You see a lot of one stories that do have some two twos lows in there. I like the fours five. Yeah, I'm old school. I'm like back to the childhood type stuff. The threeses are my favorites.
Threes is the correct answer, all right.
I already buried the lead, tim because we actually have a big piece of jazz news to talk about. Austin Inge was announced yesterday as the Jazz President of Basketball Operations, and his father, Danny, the CEO of the Jazz, will report to him. Justin Zenik, the general manager of the Utah Jazz, will report to him. So there was a lot of clarity in the presser yesterday in a way
that quite frankly, Tim, we have not heard. Even when Danny was hired, it was kind of like he doesn't want to do anything day to day, so he's just gonna kind of hang out. Xanik is going to do most of the groundwork. So we actually have a little bit more clarity with the hierarchy of this front office, more so than we've had in a few years.
What's your reaction.
I believe that Danny Ainge is reporting to his son when I see it. But Danny, like, he's not, like he said, he's not a day to day guy. He wasn't handling the trade calls and you know down in THEMITTI gritty of dealing with the agents and you know, at the gms and whatnot. That's been justin Zani's job. I think Danny's more of kind of like the senior
advisor almost to Brian Smith. But you know, obviously people are going to look at this, and I think that there will obviously be the initial reaction of mechanism of work. The one thing I would say is there is not a single executive in the NBA who considers often Age anything but immensely qualified for a position like this, like he was going to be a candidate for other teams.
You know, he's obviously been in Boston for a while, been a significant part of building that Celtics championship team. So you know, I do think that this is the addition of a strong executive mind to the Jazz's front office, and he will be leading the front office. He ultimately he's going to be the top basketball uh you know, executive, you know, the probably the last voice in Ryan Smith's ear. So I don't know exactly how I don't want to
speculate on how Justin Zanik feels about this. This is the second time somebody's been hired over his head by Ryan Smith, but he dealt with it just fine, uh under Danny Ainge. And you know, I don't know how they'll divvy things up in terms of like trade talks and dealings with agents, et cetera, et cetera. I thought the most interesting from the press conference was his answer on the tanking question. And I thought it was a pretty direct answer that still managed to leave some wiggle room,
if that makes sense. But you know, there was, as you might expect, a lot of reaction within the Jazz organization when the worst case scenario and also the most likely scenario is what happened in a lot of and it's not just about the lottery odds. You discouraging tanking and those kind of are coming into play and you know, getting smacked of that reality, but the damage that you're doing the player development if you have another season where they take the approach that they did last year.
Yeah, and your point about Danny is a really good one. And look, I've known the ages of my entire life, and you know, Danny doesn't need me to stand up for him, and quite frankly, neither does Austin. Austin does have a track record as a basketball decision maker for an organization that's really been the class of the league, among the class of the league for a long time, including the fourteen slash seventeen years he's been involved there.
So their acumen and pedigree speaks for itself, it really does. But the Danny point is interesting, Tim, because I've honestly just wondered how invested he's been in this entire thing at all. And look, he's around, he's at games, and he's at workouts and such. But I also know he likes those riverside tea times. And I also know that he likes spending time I'm with his grandkids. He's not one of those guys that just gives you a face value, Hey,
I want to spend time with my family. Answer then goes and travels to Europe for six months out of the year. He's a father and a grandfather, and he is living his life in his later stages in the way that he wants to do it. I wonder if you think Austin's addition could indicate that Danny will even be a little bit more removed than he has been, you know.
And look, it's not like Danny Ainge wanted to go work for the Utah Jazz exactly. He was recruited by Ryan Smith. And again I don't necessarily know that this is going to change a lot for Danny, because he wasn't doing the day to day stuff. You know, he wasn't grinding on the trade calls, and he wasn't you know, worrying about who they're going to sign to a two way contract. He wasn't dealing with the agents. That's all been justin Xanik's job. And so I don't know if
this changes is a lot for Danny. Again, I'm more curious to know how much will it change for Justin Xanik. But you know, this is a by NBA standards. They've had a relatively lean front office. You know, they've also let a couple other people in that front office go this off season, so you know, there still could be some hires to come well. You know, and the other thing I think that we should point out is, you know, while Will Hardy wasn't like part of the hiring process
for us and names, they do have a relationship. You know, they did work together for a year in Boston. You know, I do know there's a lot of mutual respect there and you know, I would certainly anticipate that it would be a productive, harmonious head coach lead executive relationship between those two.
So the xantic portion tim Okay, So let's let's be very clear. If you are able to traverse your way into an NBA general manager job, you simply want to keep that job.
And it is one of.
The best jobs that Justin probably ever thought he could get. He was a finalist in Milwaukee, in the fact, I think he actually almost took the job.
No, he was and then they he was like next in line, and I forgot the exact circumstances, but he kind of got strength and that deal.
Right, and they gave it to Horst and then Dennis Lindsay moved on and jay Z was elevated to general manager. And Tim, I know that you said that you don't want to speculate on where his head is that with this, But where's his head at with this?
I haven't talked to him, and I'm not going to put words in a guy's mouth, you know. I mean, jay Z has always been a very faithful, hardworking employee of the Utah Jazz. I don't know anything that would indicate that that would change. Yeah. The other thing is he's had some extremely serious health issues. You know, how to get a life stating transplant. You know, maybe taking a little bit off his plate would be beneficial. Man.
But again, that's me getting into speculation that I really don't want to do because I have not had a discussion with him.
So let's go back to what you reference.
And that was Austin's answer as a result of the question asked by our very own Sean O'Connell about the philosophy on tanking and it was a great SoundBite. I mean, I've had a lot of people send it to me like, oh, I guess things are changing, but I don't believe it
to be true. And it's pretty simple, tim like, there is this top eight protected first round pick next year that if the Jazz aren't in the top eight, it goes to the team that's probably about to win the World championship, and then the year after I believe it conveys to two second rounders.
I think something like that.
So next okay, So next year is the final time that the bill could come do. And when you are a team that is in such bad need of a talent infusion, you cannot afford to lose a f round pick that could be, you know, a player that ultimately does hit, because they need players that are going to hit. So I understand what Austin said. I don't believe that
that's going to be the approach. How do you think they do approach this season based off of the need to hang on to an asset I believe they badly need to hang on to.
Can you read the exact quote to me? Do you have that in front of you?
It was simply if Seohn asked him his philosophy on tanking manipulating minutes, you know, in the name of better draft odds, and Austin simply said, you will not see that this year.
So you might see and you don't have to call it tank, and you might see long term transactions that make it even more difficult for the Jazz to put a winning product on the floor next year. Is that tanking or is that doing what's in the best long term interest of your franchise. I think, you know, if you take his statement at face value, they're not going to tank by coming up with mythical injuries. Okay, They're not going to tank by sitting there better players during
the fourth quarters. They're not going to be you know. I mean, I think a fair word is dishonest about trying to on a night to night basis win basketball games. That doesn't mean that they're going to win a lot
of games next year. Now, Will has proven that if if you know, if you give him NBA caliber talent, that he's probably gonna the Jazz will probably win more games under his coaching, then you would think just looking at it on paper, Uh, you know, if they're if they're not doing you know, egregious tanking measures, but like, look at the Western Conference, tell me which team you realistically think the Jazz are going to be better than next year?
There is one?
Okay, I was gonna wait. So look, they they went all out to get the worst record in the league last year. They ended up with the fifth pick, which again was the worst case scenario in that situation and by far the most likely. It's like forty seven point nine percent chance that if you have the worst record in the league, that's where you're gonna land. So it's not a shock that's where they landed. Now, what did they pay in terms of player development? Maybe bad habits
kicking in, you know that sort of thing. How much they did they stunt the growth of you know, recent draft picks that are on that roster, that were in that rotation. You know, those are all questions that need to be discussed internally much less you know, on radio shows and whatnot. But I think realistically, you know, they're not going to make win now trades this summer. I mean, that'd just be silly. I think realistically, like we're looking at a team that's probably going to still land pretty
high in the lottery. Now, if you land fifth or sixth. You know, I'm not looking at the table right in front of me. But to get to your point, the fear isn't necessarily oh my gosh, we might have fifth or six taken the drafting in it, so we might get leap frogged a couple of times. And you know, if you're if you're seventh especially, might get leapfrog a couple of times. Lad ninth. That would be a disaster.
It would be a total disaster. Obviously, it's in the ninth overall pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder, So there's a there's a lot of gray here, a lot of nuance here. But to just repeat the approach that they took last year, I mean, I think you're kind of giving up on the young guys on the roster if you want to do that.
So if they if they, if they want to uh go about their business of losing while being serious about trying to compete, I feel like it means they have to move off of marketing and probably Kessler, because if if Larry plays seventy five games, if Walker plays seventy seventy five games, if Colin Sexton plays seventy to seventy seventy five games and John Collins was better. And your
point about Will is absolutely spot on. Okay, with a coach who has shown that he can maximize whatever talent he has if you allow him to maximize it, I see a team that could win thirty thirty five games in the West. I don't see a team that's making the playoffs or hanging a banner. But I see a team as presley constituted, and certainly if they draft a kid at five, they can step in and play right away, and they play all the vets and they do their
best to win games. I see a team that can win between thirty and thirty five games, which puts you right in that area of potentially not being in the top seven or top eight, which is the worst possible outcome that we could actually come up with. So if they are going to do the thing where it's like, no, we are going to put our best foot forward and try to compete, I think it means they have to move off of Larry and probably Walker.
I would agree that, you know, if they if they reached the conclusion that hey, we have got an reasonable conclusion, we've got to at least be in the top eight that there's you know, they need to address some of the uh Win probability issues. I had to put it politely via the trademarket, and I mean, do you think anybody in that roster is untouchable? No, Lowry wasn't untouchable last year. Now, their asking price for Lowry was I think other teams would say way too high, you know.
Does that come down this year? I don't know. Again, I think those are discussions that need to be had. I don't think they asking price for Sexton or for Collins, or for the Clarkson or is too high, you know. Tesser. To me, that's a tough one though, because he absolutely is a guy who you could envision as the defensive backbone of a good team, you know, four or five
years down the road. You know, it's not hard to look at Kessler, not not as like your franchise player obviously, but as a piece of a foundation that you can build upon. So that that one's tougher for me.
I agree with you. I love Walker, I love Larry. Larry's good man.
Like I'm just trying to understand how this thing can work with the long term game in mind, because to your earlier point him, they're a marathon away from the better teams in the Western Conference. I mean, Chris Finch after the Minnesota loss, He's like, hey, there are thirteen teams in the West. They're going to be trying to compete for home court. And it's like, oh, okay, so
it's probably the Jazz and the Blazers that aren't. But because they're so far away, part of me believes they're probably going to look at some of the stuff and keep the you know, the mindset of we are three, four five years away from being being able to compete with the top teams, and maybe that does make Walker expendable, even though I agree with you that's a tough, tough decision to make because he's been so good.
Yeah, and again, like they would listen to him last year, but they were asking for at least a couple of first round picks, and you know, and and then if you get into the discussions around now, what are the quality of picks, blah blah blah. You know, the lottery things also interesting to me because honestly, if you're going to trade him, was he more or less valuable in the trade market before you gave him a full blown max contract, you know, And I don't know, and I
don't know. I don't know what his value would be in the trademarket now. I do think it's like Austin Ainge has to find out doesn't mean he has to trade him, but he has to find out what the value is. And I'm not sure, you know, And just like you can't really evaluate marketing his performance last year, I mean, it's such a weird situation or Dad not to play for no, they were clearly tanking, you know. He was out of the line up every couple of games just because they're like, hey, if you play, we
might actually actually win this one. But he had a bad year. I don't know, man, I think I think some teams might have trouble figuring out what his value would be.
So with the news today that the New York Knicks have moved off of Tom Thibodeau, you know, after going to the Eastern Conference finals, after winning fifty games and back to back years making the playoffs for the last five the last three years, the most playoff wins belong to Boston, Denver, and New York is third. It's another example of an impulsive owner who'd rather play the kazoo for his dumb band that actually continue to build something that means something. And so where where I think and
look to be fair. Only time will tell if this is going to work. But bottom line is you need players, Nick players. The Jazz don't. But what Ryan has elected to do is kind of the anti Dolan approach. And Will Hardy, who's won thirty four percent of his games, is under contract forever and now he's locked in his front office guys that you know, I believe will be
around for a long long time. Only time will tell if this is the right approach, And the bottom line is you do need players, but Ryan has elected to believe in the people he's hired and give them stability moving forward and playing the long game to try to build this thing.
You know, I think good ownership is hiring good people and trusting them to do their job and supporting them without meddling. You know, Jim Dolan is not a good owner.
He's just not. The next have been good the last four years, you know, Leon Rose, I would say done a good job all things considered, But I mean, I just I don't understand fir and Tips here, and there have been noise about his job maybe being in jeopardy for really going back months now, for a lot of the season, but after an Eastern Conference Finals birth, and I don't know, maybe they I would hope they know who their next hire is going to be. I don't
know that. I've not even heard like really informed speculation on that yet. But just firing TIBs and then by figuring it out on the fly that doesn't seem to be a good plan. Now, good luck getting any idea of what their actual plan might be, because you know what. You know what the Jazz do, and almost every team
in the league does it, with the exceptional one. When they make a major, major decision, they have the people who made the decision hold a press conference where they can be asked about things, where they can explain why, where they can explain their vision. The Knicks don't do that at all. And I don't understand that either. There's a lot of things that I don't understand about the Nicks.
But you just you're in the midst of your most success full run in at least a quarter of a century, and then you say you need to get a new voice, okay, and Honestly, I really don't even want to hear from Leon Rose or Jim Dolan. What I really want to get is Jamn Bruns's honest thoughts on this.
Yeah, No, for sure.
He was asked about coach coach Tibbodeaux after Game six, and I thought he gave a really supportive, salient answer. I wonder how much of this and this is I guess it was. Haberstrow hopped on yesterday and pointed out because I asked him. I asked Tommy yesterday, what does the offseason look like in New York? Because I think they've got a cat problem.
And the cat.
Conundrum is interesting because there's so much to like about his game and then he just he doesn't close out, doesn't guard. You can put him in pick and roll and he looks like he's never done it before. And Tom brought up this whole Leon Rose worldwide West Karl Anthony toown CAAA relationship that had gone back to Kentucky basically, and there's a case to be made that this is the second time. Maybe Kat wasn't thrilled for the plane plane for Tom. He played Borham in Minnesota too. Is
there anything there? I mean, you bring up the Jalen portion, and Jalen is more important than Cat.
Is he just is to the Knicks.
But do you think there's anything with this Cat thing that you know was a theory that's being thrown around.
The thought crossed my mind. Definitely crossed my mind. And I'll be honest with you. When they traded for Cat, one of the first things that I wondered was how is that going to work with Tibbs? Because it was not pretty in Minnesota. You know, I've reached out to some people to try to get some clarity there. I don't have that right now, so I don't want to get too far out, you know, kind of over my skis.
But yeah, definitely the thought cross my mind. You know, I'll also say this, there are people in Minnesota who think that the Knicks traded for Cat is a stepping stone to make another trade. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see. There's gonna be a whole lot of big splashes this summer. It'll be interesting to see if Kat's part of another one or if he's back in New York next year.
Yeah, I mean, look, I think they were ahead of schedule by making to the Eastern Conference Finals. But I think if they have premonitions of going beyond it, they've got serious, you know, issues with their roster.
They don't have depth either.
I mean a lot of people are saying, you know, and I said this too, because Kat and Jalen and everybody they just look gassed in the fourth. So I talked to you about can you find ten minutes for Delon right or precious Achiuwa? But like their bench is bad. I understand what Tom looks down his bench and is like, I've got to play these guys.
They are so much better. Do you think they move off of Kat?
I mean, you think that's a realistic thing and try to reformulate something different.
I think he would have to be an awfully big splash, an awfully big splash for that to happen. But we will see, you know, I will say this. I've talked to people in the next front office and kind of the joke there is, why do we go through all this trouble looking for players knowing the TIBs is going to play at seven anyway? So that's fair, you know, you can kind of chicken an egg that all you want. But their depth was not They did not have quality depth and listen, I think macal Bridges is a very
good player. Certainly giving up five picks for him was a questionable move.
What stood out most and maybe we need to talk about well, you know this because you covered him. I mean, Rick Carlisle is he's so good, you know, and it's been interesting listening to him after both the Knixt series and the Cavs series just kind of say we're flying right now, like these teams just ran into a group. That's what stood What stood out most about the way the Pacers were able to figure it out they started
ten and fifteen. And your thoughts on the fact that Rick Carlile once again is back in the NBA Finals with a roster that nobody thought had a chance.
Yeah, I think just what stands out the most to me is just how unique their style of play is and how good they are at it and how well suited their personnel is for it. They play fast, and it's wide open spaces and it's perfectly tailored to Tyrese Halliburton. And you know, I see the roots of this whole thing in the Mabicks twenty eleven championship season when Kid handed the keys over to Jason Kidd and kind of
really adapted and changed his offensive philosophy. And this is like an extreme version of that, where it's Rick's not calling plays. He has created a system and a scheme and he's trusting a brilliant offensive playmaker to run it at extraordinarily fast paced and it's working, wonders. And I tell you what, man, You know, I sketched my head about Tims getting fired, but it was a just appalling how horrible the next transition defense was in that series?
How many times did the Knicks score? And three or four seconds later, Pascal Siakam just ran a go Riding's laying it up on the other end, for sure, Like how many fast breaks were there? And give the Pacers a lot of credit for that too, but like, my goodness, how many fast breaks can the team have off of
a may bucket? But again, that's just like the Pacers are relentless and very well constructed to run that style of offense from the quarterback, you know, to all the other guys, you know Siakam in particular, but the other guys as well, who were spacing the floor and finishing plays all.
Right, Tim, Before I set you loose. There is the finals that's last to be played.
We've already launched into so many dramatic offseason storylines that we forget. Starting Thursday, Oklahoma City and Indianapolis will do battle for the right to be the NBA champ. It feels hard, almost impossible for anybody to slow down this OKC train based off of what they've done all year. Quite frankly, twenty nine to one against the East. Can Indiana make it interesting?
Do you think Rick Carlisle would have to pull the kind of miracle that he did in twenty eleven when he out coached Eric Spolstrom, not saying he can't do it, but saying it's going to be tough.
All right, man, Well enjoy the trip. I'm glad you have accurate and enough footwear, and I'm glad I've learned this information about you today.
Good insight on the show and we'll chat soon.
Thanks, Tim, appreciate it as all right.
Tim McMahon covers the covers the NBA for ESPN covers the jazz. He's the jazz guy for the Worldwide Leader at ESPN. Underscore at McMahon is where you find him on Twitter. He did write a book about Luka Dotcic called Luka Dotcic in the Curse of Greatness, and the links are up on his Twitter page at.
ESPN Underscore McMahon tim.
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