Let's continue the athletic portion of the radio program with our next guest. It's pit bull in the background, so you know, it's Zach Harper time on a Tuesday afternoon.
All right, thirty degrees.
It is dumping snow, our biggest snow storm of the year.
What's it like where you're at?
Well, it was really cold this morning when I went and got coffee, still rolled the windows down because the dog loves the window down the car, but it was like fifty. I think it's it's I mean, it's really sunny outside, but I think it's like it's deceptive. It's got to be like sixty six, decept little windy, little wendy. Yeah here, I mean I walked to the store a little bit ago.
Definitely needed a hoodie.
I was gonna say.
I was in Florida a week and a half ago, down to the golf tournament, and the first day of the golf tournament it was sixty two and windy, and I could have been nude and have been happy, but Floridians, as it.
Were, were like bundled up. Are you soft like that?
Now?
Like if anything blows seventy you gotta have a hoodie? On a and a beanie.
I don't think it's a softness.
Like there's a litany of reasons why that's not acceptable, whether it's like being shorts and everything. Like, it's just like cold is cold. It doesn't matter where you are. There's colder, but it's still cold. So like, yeah, I've got to put you on if it's below seventy because why would I want to expose myself to those elements.
I think that's softness. I think you've become soft.
I think if you were if you're in seventy five degree weather all the time and then it drops to sixty five, you get colder.
Well, yes, by definition, sixty five degrees is colder than seventy five degrees, but sixty five degrees in no way, shape or form is legitimately legitimately cold, Zach.
It's colder than the surface of mercury.
I cannot collide.
That sounds like something Trump would say with no way to even back that up.
So I had that it's one. It's closer to the Sun, So that's just scientifically true.
Okay.
Trust I've been on.
Space TikTok a lot over the last couple of months.
I'm learning a lot about space.
Well, I don't know that I'm learning a lot about space, but I'm I'm finding out like I'm having a lot of information thrown at me.
Okay, all right, fair enough, fair enough. I just know you lived in our market once upon a time. Then you left us for la and it feels like you've become soft. That's that's all I'm saying.
But no, I hated the cold there too. Like it was fifty five was still cold to me in Salt Lake City. Was still cold to me when I lived in Minneapolis.
Like fifty five, sixty sixty five, that's still cold.
Minneapolis winters make this look, you know, warm, so you can't complain. And I grew up in the Northeast. I mean, Northeast winters are hell. They just it's March eighteenth and there's six feet of snow outside, so I'm just bummed out.
Yeah, I mean, like, look, I feel bad for you, but also you know your taxes aren't as bad.
Right, Okay, all right, that's enough. That's enough. That'll do, Zach, that'll do all right.
Only because it's topical, and I would imagine at some point throughout the course of your career you covered Alex Jensen. You were able to get to know Alex Jensen. And after nine years is Quinn Snyder's lead assistant, one year with Will and three years in Dallas with Jason Kidd, Alex Jensen leaves the NBA ranks to take over the University of Utah as their head coach. I just wonder what sort of context you have with this kind of big piece of news that's dropped over the past forty eight hours.
Yeah, he was one of those guys where like it was him, there was like who was it was Lamar Skeeter, there was there was Johnny Bryant, right, like there was these these these assistants under Quinn who were just renowned as like these great development guys, right and it was part of the reason why the Jazz are so good at developing players is they just have these incredible coaches.
I think I was a little shocked, like he never he never seemed to get much buzz around head coaching positions in the NBA, which was weird to me because he was so well liked within the organization and even outside the organization. People talked about him in a very high regard. But you know, some guys just just have those just have those situations where they don't get that. I don't know if that's an agent thing. I don't know if that's an interview thing. I don't know what
that is is. But the idea of him going and being the head coach at a major program, it makes sense. Like if he's as good at at development and you never really know this stuff, you know, kind of from the outside looking in, you just kind of go off what you see and what you hear, you know, second
and third hand. But if he's as good as or even half as good as they as they would rave about him with, like you throw him into a college environment with young players who need that skill development and need to prepare for the NBA, he's he's going to be as good as anybody at the college level.
I wonder since you were around here at the time, because you hear these stories and look, the bottom line is what a player is able to improve in such a stark, rapid fashion. Most of the credit does go to the player. But Dennis Lindsay on My show use the term circus freak to describe the way that Rudy Gobert was treated at the NBA combine, and then Rudy's
rookie year. I remember what, like, can he run up and down the floor without snapping a leg and half like it didn't look like it was going to work at all. And then throughout the course of really one off season, Rudy went from like a two way G League guys that's going to work to a defensive star, wart Hall of Fame player, multi time All Star, and Defensive Player of the Year. And most people that watch that development up close talk about Alex's hand in that.
Alex also worked with Walker Kessler for a year and then went on down to Dallas and worked with Lively and Gaffer and those other big So do you have any insight as to kind of the developmental side of what Alex Jensen has been able to bring to a lot of really good players in the pros?
Yeah, I mean I think you know, if you can be especially in today's game, because we have seen this resurgent resurgence of big men, if you can be kind of a big man whisper of sorts right and at the college level, it's going to be very important.
It's a big skill.
Like I always laughs because like just one of the things that drives me the most crazy, is like is like basketball influencer trainers on social media, right man, Like like just I have a real, real hatred and that just the entire culture and everything. And I'm not saying they don't do anything, but yes, you work for someone, you work with someone for like a certain amount of time over two three months, maybe four months, considering how long yourross season is, and you sure you learn skills
and you learn things or whatever. But to me, I never look at that as like actual development. What I look at is like, what were you like that eight months you were with your NBA team? And so when you see someone like Rudy, like I bet ruty. First of all, like you said, like the player gets the majority of the credit, and they have to be willing to work, but they also have to be taught what to work on. I can go shoot a thousand jumpers in the gym all day and get pretty decent at it.
But if I'm not.
Being taught the proper way to apply all this to an NBA game or to a basketball game, it doesn't really mean anything. Right, Like the application of that, and I think from what I heard, the application of not just the skills, but the awareness on here's what you need to do in these situations and how you.
Need to adapt.
That's where Alex Jensen seemed to like really shine with Rudy in particular, because that's what you know, what I was around for a couple of years, and so that that application of it, which I think is the biggest skills set. Like I was, I was thoughting this is this is gonna sound like a name dropping and it
is a little bit. But I was talking to Dominique Wilkins years ago before a game in Atlanta, and he, you know, he was talking about, you know, yeah, all these guys learn all this, all these basketball skills, but they don't learn how to play right, Like, they don't learn how to play and the off season, you know, these veterans in the eighties and nineties, like they would just go and actually play basketball, and that's how they
learned how to get better at basketball. And so learning the application of the skill matters way more than learning the skill itself. And I think Alex Jensen is the guy that teaches you how to adapt to the game of basketball.
Do you think we'll see more because you know, college basketball now has moved into this space where it does mirror of pros in a way that it didn't even four or five years ago. And it was always a rare thing for a coach to give up the pro life to go back to college. And the only time it happened is if you didn't really have any other choice, like a John.
Calipari or Rick Patina or what have you.
And you know, ultimately, the days of taking a flight with two stops in a layover, then renting a car to drive to the outskirts of Iowa to see a prospect aren't necessarily the deal in college anymore. In the NBA, you know, the deal, you fly in the sky in a five star hotel, you eat lobster and steak, and you land and you check in your five star hotel and life.
Is pretty good even when you're on the road.
But the way the college game is going, it feels like there's been a little bit more of a willingness from pro coaches to look at, you know, college gigs. Do you think this is the beginning of a bit of a trend.
Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately there are just so many more jobs, right, Like, there's thirty teams in the NBA, right, and there's what one hundred and something one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty D one schools or maybe that's even low. There might even be more important that in terms of the programs and so one, the opportunity is greater, but two, like, yeah, I mean it is. It is becoming such a business, like an overt business
at the college level. I do think guys that are if you don't get that shot in the next few years, if you're not that hot name like a you know, like Charles Lee was before he went to Charlotte or Darvin ham was before he got the Lakers gig and everything, like, if you're not that hot name, you do have to start looking to the college level, and the money's going to be there, and it's gonna look a lot like at least in terms of the business of it all.
It's getting players, it's gonna look a lot like the NBA level.
You know, it's funny.
I knew that the number you dropped was low, and based off of the knowledge that you dropped of the temperature of the surface of mercury. I know numbers are hard, but three hundred and fifty two D one program, Zach, that's wild.
I mean good ones.
No, that's fair, that's fair, but it's fine.
But you're point about just employment, right, like is well taken. You got to get a gig and if at some point if you run out of NBA opportunities, I guess the college game these days maybe is a better fallback option than it was back in the day.
Yeah, and you're looking okay, if there's your three fift yard, you're looking at more than ten times the amount right right in terms of employment, Like yeah, that's you know, they're not all going to be a Utah or a Kentucky or whatever. You know, these major programs that can that can spend money. But I mean we we've seen so many times these guys make their way up through the ranks. Like you're not using this as necessarily this is my you know, next twenty years, like it might
just be your next four or five. You know, I think plenty of coaches have that in mind of I'll make a name for myself and then we'll see what happens.
What's uh, what's the difference in the dating scene La and Salt Lake?
Oh man, that's the whole, that's the whole.
Different show. I mean they like it's it's a it's a cesspool.
It's just the worst it is.
It's so weird.
I can't even begin to tell you, Like, it's such a it's such a weird place to be, like just talking to people like like and I just think I think society in general is broken in terms of communication, but there are I think, because there are so many options here that people just don't know how to interact with each other anymore. Like it's almost like like we weren't meant as a as a as a being to have this much information in these many things and in
front of us. I actually saw this this video online the other day that I thought was perfectly put there, Like we were meant to see our reflection maybe four times in our life, like in a pond, and now we see each we see ourselves constantly, and we're not meant for this kind of information. I actually think it. I think we've gotten to a point because of technology.
It has broken everybody and so just everywhere you are, You're like everyone in this side away is broken, but LA is just a different kind of broken.
More success Zach Harper as a single male and and success can be defined on however you define it.
I'm not here to judge, but Salt Lake or La.
Oh well, I wasn't a single man in Salt Lake, so that that wasn't.
That wasn't the scenario.
I moved there with somebody and moved out of there with somebody.
But I would say.
Pre COVID in La was fish in a barrel. Couldn't have liked, couldn't have been easier to to get dates. Since then, it has definitely gotten to be jumping through more hoops, and these days it's it's I mean, it's just it's just getting people out of their homes. It's difficult in general, right, even the people I know who want to.
Date, like they're just like, ah'd be bothered.
Well, And I can't even blame anybody because I don't want to leave my house either. I mean I just kind of think it's where we're at now.
Yeah, And I just you know, you keep waiting for that like that hot postal worker like door dash person to like, you know, fall in love with I just not here.
Keep waiting, pal. I don't know that you're gonna run into the hot door dash. I mean, look, it is LA.
I think My experience is most people in the service industry are there to try to find some dreams.
So maybe who knows, Zach.
And in Los Angeles, maybe the door dash dating community is more vibrant than I understand.
Let me tell you the service industry in terms of waiters, waitresses, bartenders, that's still that's still the spot to go. The apps and all that other stuff is just crap.
Yeah, no, not fair enough.
And I just because you brought up the whole like basketball trainer, influencer culture and yeah, my favorite, Like I think influencer culture is a pathetic thing that needs to go away, period. But I think my favorite drifters are dating coaches, right, I think those are my favorite drifters right now.
Oh my god, you're so right.
And and just to influence the culture because.
I go to this like very I don't I don't necessarily buy anything there. I just go to like check out, you know, the Devorces with my dog every day. But I go to you know Arawon sure, yeah, yeah, So I'll go sit outside. There's like this beautiful area outside of Arawon. Every day I'll go and hang out there in the morning with my dog. It's one of the places we go to just get him outside of the house before we have to be inside while I work all day. And recently there's been this thing in Arawon
where there's this Japanese strawberry. They sell a single strawberry. It's nineteen dollars for one strawberry. And so I've seen all these people like instagramming it and put it on their phone and like everything. And I saw these two women this weekend, these these two hot Russian women who were like doing some kind of instagram thing for it, and they were just like, yeah, it wasn't worth it.
I'm like, this is where I live.
This is the worst, absolutely the worst.
Jeez man, how far we have fallen.
Goodness, gracious, anyway, let's talk more basketball.
We can move on.
Let's see here, there's just nothing really interesting to talk about when it comes to the jazz. I do wonder you know, you're a guy that pays attention to prospects in the draft, and I don't know if we're high speed ahead to you know, I've talked to you about this before, like with the Wamba Yama year, when you would hear a couple of like guys trying to be different, Like, well, I kind of like, Scoot, You're like, don't do that, right?
Are are we in an area at all where there's any doubt about the top of the draft or is it Cooper flag and everybody else?
I think it is Cooper flag and everybody else. But I do think I think you'll get some of that, especially like if Duke gets knocked out early or or Cooper Flagg. You know, he hurt his ankle, So if he doesn't have a good showing or something, you might start getting some people going Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey whatever.
I do think Dylan Harper's awesome. Ace Bailey people have kind of cooled off on He was maybe more of a contender for this a year ago, and you know, Rutgers just just didn't have the year I think people thought they were going to have, and so Ace Bailey maybe can grab some momentum at some point leading up to the to the NBA Draft. But I do think it's Cooper flag or bust. I think there's still you know,
Edgecomb's interesting. He might he might put on like a show if if Baylor can make a decent run, which I actually think they would have to go through Duke probably, I think if I remember the bracket correctly, so you know,
maybe maybe Edgecomb makes a name for himself. I really like the big guy from Duke Malwac Like I think I think he's someone that I'm not saying he's this type of player, but he reminds me a little bit of Joel Embiid in the sense of, like, here's a guy that we don't really know a whole lot about. He's super skilled, he hasn't played basketball that long, and he's kind of come out of nowhere for a major program. Like I think he could really make a name for himself, but it's it's still Cooper.
Yeah.
And it feels like that's the consensus among people that cover the draft on a daily basis in a way that I just don't right. So here, here's uh interesting dynamic of the market. Sarah Toad desra News Front of the Show wrote a piece last week and it kind of felt like she was talking to somebody in the organization to further an air where now the whole thing is like, hey, we're just starting the rebuild, because the past three years was a tear down.
It was not not a rebuild.
We're just starting the rebuild because the past three years was a tear down. I find that hard to stomach because the Spurs were able to pull off a rebuild right away. Like really, I don't know, and Sarah's great. I'm not knocking on Sarah at all. It just kind of felt like the organization trying to get this narrative out there, like, hey, now the rebuild begins, not in
the past three years we've been tearing it down. And even Zach, if they luck into that number one pick and grab Cooper flag, there's a feel in the market that next year is going to feel a lot like this year, right, So what what do you make of that?
Now?
I'm not even necessarily saying it's the wrong approach, but that's kind of this new narrative out this way.
Yeah, it's interesting marketing, right, Like, and I don't even I don't I wouldn't fault Sarah either for running with that, Like I think if that's if that's the message they went out there, that's that's news worthy, noteworthy, Like I think that's I think that's interesting. It's fun. To me kind of feels like the rebel started when you traded Rudy and Donovan in the same offseason, right, that kind
of feels like that's when the rebuilt started. To me, Now, how you weren't a fifteen win team that season, But I don't know. That's when you trade your two All NBA guys, that's kind of when that begins. But yeah, like I you know, you look at you look at even the Spurs last year, the first year with Wemby, they won what twenty two games? This year, obviously things went differently because he had the blood clot but they were still under five hundred when he went down, Like
they weren't. They were in the mix for the plan, but they weren't definite to make it. Like I that even when you hit a home run with that that number one pick, that's it's It still takes time to build this whole thing up. And so I would expect another couple of years of bad basketball. I don't think it should be this bad, right, But also.
That twenty twenty six draft class looks.
Pretty good, So maybe you want to be really bad next year and and get another one of those guys. But I'd like, man, that's tough to stomach. If you're if you're telling the fan base this is you know, this is just the start of this after what you've had to watch this season. And look the last the previous two years were not great, but they were still bad, right, Like, it's still a bad team. It was better a lot
better than this. But that's, man, that's tough marketing. Like, you better, you better be dropping those those ticket prices, which I'm sure they won't do.
No, they't raise them. That's the deal.
And you know, you know what's wild, Zach, Like I just you know, I watch every game, watch every minute of every game, and I just don't see pieces in place that indicates this team is one or two pieces away from being close to anything other than maybe a play in right, And if that's your deal, then maybe the right thing is to you know, and again operated off the premise that they're able to get lucky and grab Cooper Flagg at one and he's eighteen years old,
he reclassified, he should be a senior in high school. Does that reset your timeline where you look at trading marketing and you look at maybe even moving off of like a Walker Kessler and you say, like we are going all in. Cooper is the centerpiece and we're moving off of these veteran players are any good. The problem is, like Keyante continues to be so maddening, and there's some stuff to like about Isaiah Callier, but you can't be a league guard and shoot twenty five percent from three
in the NBA. I mean, maybe Taylor Hendricks gets healthy and we see something that we have and Cody Williams is our top ten pick and he has been horrible. Like there is a case to be made that they are as far away right now as they were when they started this thing.
Yeah, I mean I think you're spot on there, Like there's there's no one on this team. And there are a lot of players I like on this team, there's no one on this team that I think, yeah, they have to be a part of this in the future, even markmen right, Like I don't think like he's still young. He's what twenty seven ish, twenty eight ish, somewhere in that range, but like he's not someone who needs to be a part of this. And here's the thing, Cooper Flag could be one of the best rookies we've ever
seen that might add five wins. Yeah, Like that's that's like, it doesn't mean they're going to be any kind of good, it means they'll be more rewatchable. But I also, you know, my first year as a credential media member, I was covering the King's team that had Tyreek Evans as a rookie. Now it was great. We got to focus on the twenty five and five campaign and him battling Brandon Jennings and Steph Curry for Rookie the Year and all this stuff. That was still a horrible team that was really bad
all season. Like it like, you can distract with little things here and there, but ultimately the product is still it's still bad. And so those distractions only last so long, and you still have to put players around these guys, and and there's just it doesn't matter how good Cooper flag is, Like he's he's not going to fix this in a year. If this is you know, with what they've shown this year. Like I'm with you, Like there's there's no real light at the end of the tunnel.
It doesn't look like an oncoming train.
Yep.
All right, before I say you loose, let's do our weekly revisit. What is keeping Mark Dagnold up at night in the Western Conference if anything at all? Because all these teams they continue to jockey for this, like, Okay, can they up? And Okac have serious souls. I mean, Houston's run off seven straight, but they're the number two seed. I don't think anybody believes they're gonna beat.
Okay See in a series.
And I still probably lean towards Denver just because I've seen them do it before. Golden State just ran off seven straight and I think they are thirteen and two with Jimmy and then the Lakers have those two players. Is there a team out there that can give Okac fits?
Yeah?
I mean I still think you have to worry about yokis right, but even like I still have questions about okay See and tight games. But that game against Boston was pretty good. Yeah, it was like they handled that pretty well. Like for all of the questions I have, they didn't fully answer them, but that was something where I sat back and thought.
Okay, that's a pretty good step towards towards answer that question. And so you know, I think, man, it still feels like the Warriors are a player away. And maybe that's just Buddy Heald shooting like Buddy Healed again, not shooting like a league average shooter. And if that happens with everything else they've got going on, I could see that.
I do think they're like on the verge of contending, but there might be a difference, you know, with the way the Thunder are playing, there might be a difference between being on the verge of contending and actually contending with this team, I mean, their defense is just so special. Like, I know, the offense has been great lately, but.
It's fueled by that defense.
They score like twenty two points a game off turnovers, an insane number of points off turnovers for a team to do. And so like, I'll still you know, I'll still give respect Yokich, I'll give respect to the Warriors. You know, I guess you technically put the Lakers in by default. But the I mean, the Thunder looking pretty good right now.
Well, Zach, I can promise you tonight around eleven eleven thirty, I'm gonna be laying in bed wondering what does a.
Nineteen dollars strawberry taste? Like, So I appreciate that apparently disappointing.
Go look up the surface of mercury right now.
And by the way, because I live in LA I know it's in retrograde, which whatever that means.
You know what, Now you gotta go, Now you gotta go for so many different reasons, some I'll explain off air. Oh triggered, I am triggered, and I can't even tell you why is it also the summer solstice yet?
Because I know that.
There was a lunar eclipse and Everybodyeah.
Well that means you better get to swiping because the lot is ready for Zach.
Thanks for the time, it would be good. Zach Harper NBA Daily. His style