Who should the Utah Jazz draft with the Fifth Pick? And, Lauri Markkanen linked to Philadelphia 7…

Who should the Utah Jazz draft with the Fifth Pick? And, Lauri Markkanen linked to Philadelphia 7…

Your home for the best coverage of the Jazz Utes and Cougars is right here on The Zone. This is JJ and Alex, presented by G2G Bars on 975 the KSL Sports Zone. um confirmation from a source that uh sources to be anonymous that Bryson Barnes is the starting quarterback currently under clear but that not just that that he’s loving the uh the Bronco Menal era so far. So that’s good. That feels to me like the perfect fit quarterback to coach. Well, think about what he’s just coming from. What’s he coming from? Devin Dampier. What were his skill sets? really hard. Yes. Like has insane legs on top of the fact that he’s also a quarterback like and so if you’re in a good enough if you’re in a a spot where you feel like you can do something. I know he doesn’t have the same offensive coordinator because he’s at Utah now, but uh yeah. So Bronco Menol already having some uh some fans up there at Utah State in the quarterback room. I would I listen that’s a guy who just wins wherever he goes. You can say whatever you want about Bronco. Wherever he goes, he wins. The system works. Absolutely. Kevin McGiven, by the way, the offensive coordinator at Utah State. There you go. Where’s he out of? Where’d they get him from? San Jose State. San Jose State. Yeah, he was working for Coach Ken. So, uh Kevin McGibbons from Utah County. Okay. So, he’s he’s he’s had multiple stops in this uh in the state as a coordinator and uh position coach. Awesome. Hey, uh, our program brought to you by G2G bars, by the way. Uh, the protein bar that doesn’t quit. Give it a shot. It’s local. They make it here. Their factories here in Oram, and they are blowing up across the country. You can find them in Costco, Holiday Oil, Maverick, Associated Foods, and many other places in the refrigerated section because they’re dang fresh. So, give it a shot for yourself. Let’s kick off this hour. Let’s have a little bit of fun. Uh, let’s chat some Utah jazz. That’s where we’re going to kick things off right here. It’s time for the biggest story of the day. This is what made the cut with JJ and Alex on 975 the KSL Sports Zone. And this portion of the show brought to you by the good folks at Trajan Wealth, your local trusted financial fiduciaries in retirement 8997600 or their website trajewealth.com. Uh this was a wild one for me to see this morning and I saw some people talking about it and I went, “Okay, hold on a minute. the all 59 uh draft picks projected for ESPN in this NBA draft. And I you immediately start to scroll down and go, “Okay, what’s this going to look like here?” And inside the inside these the discussion of whether or not the Utah Jazz are going to take Khan Canipple or uh you know maybe maybe you see even Trey Johnson who I know a lot of people I Trey Johnson’s high on your list right? Oh yeah. Uh I think there’s three guys that they should consider. You like you like Trey Johnson. I like Coniple. ESPN has Jeremiah Fears who I would not have put on the list but fine whatever. Point guard out of out of Oklahoma. Just what you need. Another short point guard coming into the uh system. Sorry, that’s not me. I’m not trying to be mean here. But was Jeremiah Fears one of your three guys? No. Okay. No, he’s not. So Trey Johnson, Khan Kipple, that’s who you and I have kind of I I have a I have and it was from draft night when Ben Anderson said, “Here’s why I like Coniple. I’m sold.” I’m like, “Okay, give him to me then. Bring him here.” and he’s said multiple times, Ben has, that uh that he’s going to be one of the best shooters in the league. And then you’re like, okay, he is the best shooter in the draft. If you can do something with that, then if you can get a guy who’s the best shooter in the draft, then why don’t you take him? I don’t know. But either way, what was also discussed was the possibility of Lowry Markin uh and Lowry Markin not being a member of this Utah Jazz specifically as they start to wonder about what the long-term status of marketing is going to be. Here’s what the writeup is. A two-time all-star who would have been uh an active if it would have been an active market, the Jazz were open to trading him. Going from the NBA’s worst record to the number five pick is a stern reminder of the pitfalls of trying to rebuild. It’s unclear how the Jazz are going to do it. Now, the thing about Larry Markin is what was also brought up was the idea that he could be traded to the Philadelphia 76ers for the number three draft for that number three spot in the draft. How on earth is that a a a good thing? JJ, hey, it’s not possible unless you find somebody on their roster that has the money to match. And I’m not sure you’re trading Lowry Markin for Paul George, right? That’s what this report says. Paul George. It says they’re going to they may teams around the NBA believe they may try and target Kevin Durant or Lowry Markin to move off of Paul George’s contract specifically. Okay. Out of those two, out of Kev out of Kevin Durant and Larry Markin and you’re the 76ers, which one do you want right now? Larry Markin. I mean Kevin Kevin Durant’s how old now? 38 37 36 How old is he? I’m We’re looking at Christian. We’re like, you better Google this. Uh I’d say he’s 36. So he’s a year younger than Steph even, right? Yeah. He’s going into year 13 in the league. And that’s a lot, but he’s still one of the best like ever, right? Aren’t we looking at that guy? Is he a top 50 guy in the NBA? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Oh, yeah. But we’re talking about different eras now, right? We’re talking about something different here. And Larry Grant is in his 17th. What just played his 17th year. He was drafted in 2007. Sorry. He was a young young. He was that he played one year at Texas, right? Yeah, correct. Gets drafted. He’s a 15 time Allstar. Gets drafted by Don’t get Misty in here. Oh, sorry. Seattle SuperSonics. Gets drafted by the Seattle SuperSonics. Rest in peace. And uh no, look, he played for the Seattle SuperSonics franchise. Took him to the Western Conference Finals, remember? Yeah. As a as a Thunder. So Larry Markin or Kevin Durant for Paul George and the number three pick. There’s just there’s no way they’d try to do that, right? There’s no way Danny and Ryan and Justin Xanic try to do that, right? JJ, how bad do they want to move up to three? There’s no way that it’s a benefit. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that deal. Paul George, by the way, how old is he? How old is Paul freaking? Same age, right? 36, 37. He’s in that same I mean, he he’s going to be Yeah. Okay. But he’s going to be making something like what? Some crazy number. Something like that. Oh my god. Dude’s making dude’s needs to just go do a podcast. I think he’s done. He is doing the podcast. He’s already there. Uh fine. Now, in addition to that, in terms of things that uh you could see happen for this Utah Jazz team in the draft, Jake and Ben had NBA draft analysts uh from Hoops HQ, Kristen Peak, on the program today. Here’s what she said. Take away from this what you will. Maybe a bit of pandering to the to the BYU crowd. I don’t know. But here’s what it sounded like this morning when she was talking about that number five pick. There’s still some great options there. Um, you know, you hear the name Trey Johnson, uh, Jeremiah Fears as a point guard. I also, um, I’m I’m going to shout out Jagor Deon. He is kind of creeping up at the right moment. His pro day in Chicago was incredible. And you want to talk about a player that the Jazz have had ample time to watch and at over at BYU and and kind of over scout. I mean, it would not surprise me at all if he’s at play at five. Uh, don’t you dare do that to me. Don’t you dare tell me that Jagor Demon’s better than uh than we thought. Now, here’s what’s crazy. He had a great combine, right? From what you guys are telling me. Awesome combine by Aayor Demond. Is that a shock? There’s a guy who measures well. He’s a legit 69. He’s long. He has all these tools. He has all this potential, which is really what you do in the draft now, right? Everything’s about what kind of skills could we make this guy turn into? He’s got soft hands. He’s got crazy eyes to be able to pass. And everybody loves this guy’s vision. As a guy who’s been play Here’s the other thing. He’s been he’s been playing basically professional ball since he was what, 15. I mean, he’s at the highest level in Spain at the age of 15, 16 years old. Yeah. Living on his own, by the way. Right. At 15, 16 years old. Was it uh Travis Hansen who told us that he had his like 16th birthday in his apartment in the Canary Islands like by himself? You know, that’s there’s some maturity there that you don’t necessarily get in the league and everybody who, you know, has intersected with Jay Deon sees that he’s turning heads of the strong combine. However, is that an aggressive reach by this uh by this front office if they were to try to get Jagger Demon at number five? JJ, do you look at that and say that’s too much? That’s a reach. Uh there’s too many good players on the board that have greater star potential. Uh you you might have an Ace Bailey, you might have a VJ Edgecom, you might have a Trey Johnson. Now, if you get to, you know, talking about a Coniple, who I think is a good player, but there’s like he he’s his NBA skill is he’s a an elite shooter. Okay. He does that one great thing. We’re talking about five tool guys. Like guys that do a number of things well. Like guys that can shoot it, that are on the rim, that can rebound. Like they all have things that they can do multiple things. The guys I mentioned, Jaor 69 and a half with the shoes off. By the way, crazy measurements. So he’s really com I understand it. But it just feels like at number five that would be a reach. I don’t know that Jagor I would place him ahead of those other guys I just mentioned. Now if the Jazz were not getting one of those three guys I mentioned and then you get into that common Malawatch coniple you know the Duke players some of those other guys you could probably make a case for Jagor that high now if the Jazz don’t actually think that you know Trey Johnson or Ace Bailey or VJ Edgecom whoever falls them at five is that great of a player and they want to trade back and get Jaor we can have a different conversation but did you just tank to get Jaor And are we okay with that? That would feel really bad. Are we okay with that? Need I remind you, do you feel like you found a franchise player in Jaor Demon if you tanked this year for that? I’m not trying to be mean about it because I think he’ll have a great career, but I wonder I mean one of the I don’t know. You tell me when guys come to the league like do they learn to shoot? You know what I mean? Do do guys get do guys learn to shoot? I don’t know. Jiego Demon shot 26 and a half% from three at BYU. Not exactly the clip that you’d want from a guy shooting at the college three-point line and then ask him to convert that into something into the NBA. By the way, he didn’t play very good defense either and he turned the ball over quite often. So these are all things that right you could say, hey, that’s correctable. Of course I love Jagor. Don’t get me wrong. Don’t BYU fan, don’t get upset with me by saying this. Jagor Jagor is going to be a great pro. You should hear the stuff he says about Jagor off the air. BYU fans. Okay. Okay. Can you take Jagor at number five ahead of those names I mentioned? I don’t think you can. I don’t think you can. That’s tough ask. Yeah. Look, I fall back in the draft or figure something out. That’s great. Or find a way to move up from 21 to go get Jagor at 10 or 12. I don’t think anyone expects Jaggore to be the fifth pick in the draft. You know what’s going to happen though? Some some team is you think he’s the guy and you you go ahead and pick him because that’s the guy you think is going to be the man. You know how you know how front you have to live with that. You know how the front office executives are too. If a guy falls in love with a dude, like they’ll bend over backwards to get him, right? And it kind of it’s kind of weird because obviously Danny A and Ryan Smith and their connection to BYU, but that would make it to where they relationship with Diego, but that means that they would actually see a little bit better maybe like they were able to scout him all year in a way, right? How many games were Danny and Ryan down? kind of my point is you spend so much time with a kid and you love him so much as a person that it affects your evaluation. I can see that. So the other way around, right? Not to go, hey, he had a great combine because executives will go, I love that guy at the combine. the other folks who watched him all year long would go, “Yeah, I can’t I can’t take him at five with the with the, you know, with the with the with the downside of things of the turnover machine that he that he can be sometimes the bad shooting from long distance that he can be.” And I get it. I will say 69 and a half with shoes off is basically 6’11, right? We’re talking a guy we’re talking about a guy who was 6’11 essentially and somebody in Chicago probably fell in love with that dude during the combine and I I think if if they would have fallen in love with him he would have already been a part of that discussion. I don’t think the Jazz are going to take him at five, but we’ve seen crazier things happen, right? And and you know how it is too, right before the draft, you start to see the PR and the and the and the GM talk and it some of it is misdirection. Some of it is just you start to see guys pick up momentum. Yeah. In weird ways. Sometimes you don’t know how. Ask uh ask the NFL how that works. the NFL, you’ll suddenly start to hear some stuff that that you’ll have the Laramie Tonsel uh, you know, video start rolling around and people go, I don’t know about taking him number one overall anymore. Right. You have this trending. He’s gone on to have a great NFL. Oh, you he was going to be a slam dunk pick. He’s an O lineman. He was like the freak athlete at O line, but you couldn’t take the hit, pardon the pun, on taking that guy with the weed mask that he was. Wasn’t that what it was? the the gas mask weave incident. Yeah. Now, I’m not saying that’s Diego Demon. Obviously not. What I’m saying is is that you have this you have stuff that starts to come up for why teams suddenly love a guy to where they suddenly don’t like a guy, right? Why is it that uh why is it that you’re seeing a lot of people go, “Oh, Ace Bailey, I don’t know. Suddenly now he’s not the number three guy.” Is it just because he measured I mean, they he put himself down at 610 and he was 67 and a half. or 67 and a quarter or whatever. Jaggar Demo was listed all year long at like 68 69 and it turns out with his shoes off he’s 68 or 69 and a half now. It might also be because he’s freaking 18 years old. Like just turned 18 this year and he’s really young. I don’t know. It’s just as funny to me to watch the back and forth about what people think about these teams and what is actually going to happen. I don’t know. But for me, I’m just so sick of taking a guy and going, I think we can develop him. Man, it’s been so hard. That’s such a hard thing to try to do, right? That’s what they done with their top pick the last two drafts, right? Let’s bring a guy in and let’s make it happen. And I’m not going to say that Cody Williams, we haven’t seen Taylor because of the injury and Cody Williams first year was not good. Not great. And I told Christian this before the show. I was like, you can kind of look over that because they ended up overperforming at 29 and 31 with those picks, right? Yeah. Flip and Isaiah Coll made up for it. You had three stabs at it. I think you got it right at two out of three. Great. And maybe let’s hope Cody Williams can figure it out next year. But at the very least, you got value at 29 and 32 that you rarely get. Yeah. All right. Did she Hey, did they How do they Let me ask you, Christian. So, is Ben still on the Con Canipple uh bandwagon? Ben was out today, but I’m sure he is. He has been, as you said, ever since the draft lottery, he’s kind of He’s been a big conimple fan. Yeah. Does Jake kind of just go, “Well, I’ve seen too many of these to think that I could make any kind of look and pretty much.” Yeah. Yeah. So, who knows how this thing goes. executives get they get wild hair sometimes and they can like you said JJ one of the things that Danny A is known for is his elite level of being able to scout guys. Yes, he’s very good. He watches a lot of film. He is a master at that. I don’t think Danny A gets sold on, you know, the personality side of things and the owner doesn’t make the doesn’t make the pick. I I I really do think I mean there are owners who will Matt will make things on their roster happen because they’re the owner. I don’t think that’s Ryan Smith’s vibe. I think that he does really the way that he got Danny A here was to tell him you get the control, right? Yeah. And so he and Justin Xanic put their heads together. He’s going to trust Danny and Justin to do their job. So let him do it. I don’t think Jagor Demon is the guy at number five. Can’t be can’t be at five. Now if something changes with their draft position, then we have a different conversation. If he’s available, hey, if he’s available at 21, just steal a video. Oh my gosh. Now that’s a that’s see that how the conversation changes. Then suddenly it’s a massive then then suddenly we’re talking about value. There’s no way he’s there at 21. You start ripping him at five and then you start praising him at 21. Oh five number five pick. He can’t shoot where he turns the ball over all the time. 21. Love his length. Love this pass from the draft. Oh man. He’s got eyes in the back of his head. I’ve never seen something like this. He’s such a pro. It’s like Magic Johnson at point guard. I know that these are the these are the things that we talk about. This is how we act with this with the with the draft and with the and with the combine and all these things. We can get totally fooled. By the way, how many guys at the NFL level have great combines and then end up being not very good pros. A lot. All right, let’s take a break. We’ll come back. We’ve got uh more to go when we return. Let’s get ourselves uh speaking of the NFL, let’s get to the NFL Blitz. I got some uh we we already broke the news earlier, but we’ll bring it up again. Fred Warner gets a new deal. We’ll tell you exactly what those numbers look like and much more. The tush push is going to be up for a vote by owners. We’re going to take that uh we’ll take a look at that as well. So stay here. 975 VKSL Sport Zone.

What options do the Utah Jazz have with the Fifth Pick in the NBA Draft? There’s one name that may surprise you. Also, could Lauri Markkanen be on the move?