What Is Next For The Jazz?

What Is Next For The Jazz?

I look rough, but the Utah Jazz situation looks rougher. That is the starting point of today. Hello there. It’s uh your boy Wraith Hoops like usual. Um I’m going to try and be concise and also efficient with my time today, but I think I’ll still end up roaming closer to 30 minutes. You’ll know before you click on this video. But we’re going to touch a little bit on the draft along with where we’re going to go as a team organization as a whole, what we’re going to do with our players, and just some overall thoughts that I have so far. Looking over some more articles, looking at where the league is as a whole and where things are trending, as well as just where our young guys are, as well as what we should do with our veterans, because that’s also going to be a very big thing going forward for me personally. I’m sure a lot of people even in the comment section of the last video were talking about the likelihood that we may even have to end up offloading Larry Markin at this point and he loves being here and I love having him. I’m sure we all do. But it’s one of those things where like guys like him, Colin Ston, you know, 26, 27, right there in that window where they’re veterans in the league, but they’re not like older about to leave. They’re prime type veterans. So, it leaves a little bit more of a question mark in your head because you don’t necessarily need to trade them. But when you have no genuine direction and you don’t know what you’re getting out of the next couple of years, you can’t sit there and say, “All right, guys, we’re going to definitely be competing in 2025, 2026, or 2026, 2027, cuz we don’t know.” A lot of things were a lot of our uh guarantees I guess were hinging on us being able to be efficient and get the job done and get the person that we wanted in the draft this year at one Cooper flag because that’s a surefire guy that fit into what we needed for our team as far as being a wing defender, being a primary scoring option and just that length. He just as an asset aside from the fact that he’s obviously the best player in this draft class, just as a asset of a player, he fit the bill the most. And obviously any team would want to take him, but the fact that we not only didn’t get him, but landed at five, which granted, you know, the odds led to that. And honestly, if we weren’t guaranteed a top five pick, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up slipping to seven, but you know, we we lucked out and got five, so we have to deal with that. I believe now looking over some more stuff that the 76ers are going to be the most likely candidates to be willing or to entertain offloading their pick because yes, the Spurs are up in there, but it seems like they’re still going to just sit there and grab whoever the best person is on the board. And it’s one of those things where you could yes, I guess grab a big or if you’re the Spurs, move down and grab a big that’s not guaranteed to be a top two, top three pick. Or you could end up deciding to just go for the best player available, which is going to be a guard. And yes, CP3 is on his way out and he’s going to take like that more mentorship type role with the Spurs now. But you still have Stefon Castle. You still have De’arren Fox who’s going to be coming back. Obviously, he had the injury during the season, but those are guys that are going to lead your room, but then you can also bring up a third guard who even if he comes off the bench, even if he starts alongside them and you go three guard heavy, you’re going to have the length and defensive capabilities to get the job done because you’re just that deep. I think the Spurs are kind of like they’re somewhere in between the Thunder, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers because you really don’t want to see either team in the playoffs because of how depthy it can get. But I think that the Spurs lean more towards the Pacers because they have more guys that are going to be able to be competent ball handlers that can initiate the offense and a lot more role players that can do more. When you watch the Thunder without Shay on the court, there’s a lack of direction. JDub just put up tour dates in their last game which ended up leading to a game seven which will be played today uh Sunday if you’re watching this video when it comes out. But it’s one of those things where I think the Spurs are where we would love to be, right? Cuz they have a Victor Webinama. They have all these guys that also are really really reliable players and they’ve been proven and will continue to prove themselves but they also have a distinct direction and the draft has allowed them to be successful. We have had multiple draft picks. We have four draft picks this year. Two first, the fifth, the 21st, and two in the second round. And then next year, obviously, we have more draft picks. And we’re it’s become a foregone conclusion that we’re going to end up tanking again basically at this point unless something absolutely insane happens because we don’t want to end up conveying our pick because if it’s I think it’s top eight protected, it’s not top seven, it’s top eight protected. And if it’s outside of that window, obviously, it’s going to go to the Oklahoma City Thunder who we don’t want to give more to. But at this point, their window for championships is going to be over before ours even starts. So, you know, I I don’t know where to go with from there. But for us, I think that it’s one of those questions where we have to find an identity very very quickly. And I think it might start with just honestly reaching out and seeing what it would take for the 76ers to move on from their third overall pick. Because it’s not as if they need it. a healthy Tyresese Maxi, a healthy Joel Embiid, a more cemented version of Paul George who isn’t as washed and turned into a podcaster as he was this year along with the guys like Kelly Ubé, Andre Drummond, all those guys. That’s a winning team. That’s a playoff team in the Eastern Conference. Are they a championship caliber team? Debatable. And they had Jared McCain, too, who went off until he got hurt. So, they’re more of an injury issue, and that’s why they ended up so deep in the lottery this year. I don’t think that’s going to continue. So, I think that they would be willing to entertain the possibility of moving down to five or maybe they don’t care about a top five pick at all and you can give them like the 21st pick overall and then somebody else uh even if it’s a couple pieces off the roster. Now, one thing that was suggested by one article that I saw was offloading Larry Markin for Paul George and obviously switching the 21st overall pick from us for their third overall pick. Now, you could argue that this makes a lot of sense because it actually provides help for Joel Embiid. It gives him a shelf uh shooting big that can put the ball on the floor a little bit better. Obviously, he’s become a little bit better passer over this past season. He’s been working on some more things of his game because obviously we weren’t planning on winning, so why not just go out there and shoot anything? But he did have an injury that was nagging and a lot of people seem to believe that it wasn’t nagging. I was like, well, if he’s shooting his catch and shoot threes at a lower rate in a lower percentage and off the dribble he’s also suffering, it’s likely to believe or likely to assume that something’s off. You know, if you’re always consistently able to do something and then all of a sudden you can’t do it for an extended period of time, I’m more likely to believe something happened than just to assume that, oh, you’re BSing me because there’s no benefit to him doing that. Honestly, like we we can lose games while having a Larry Mark and master class. I’ve seen it happen before. We’ve all seen it happen before. And then for Paul George, he has three more years on his deal. Granted, it’s for like salary matching uh circumstances that we would do this trade, but you know, losing Lowry isn’t something that I really want to do because Lowry likes being in Utah. He’s enjoyable in the locker room. He’s just great locker room presence. Granted, he hasn’t I think he’s been to one playin game and has no playoffs like showings ever, but you know, that’s just the nature of the beast. Colin Ston doesn’t even have a playin game if memory serves me right. So, neither of them have been in the playoffs. And those are our most reliable offensive weapons that we have on the roster. You could argue John Collins, but a lot of people feel, you know, up and down on Jon Collins. It depends on the day. Walker Kessle is our most proven young guy, but he has no jumper. His free throw percentage was in the 50s, I believe, this season. It might have been like 54%. Y’all can fact check me on that in the comments below. But it it was abhorent, right? And we hoped that he would end up developing a three-point shot, but like about 20 games into the season, we just saw the scheme change to where he was not taking any outside shots even from the corner. He would just kind of float out there a little bit, set some screens, a little DHO action, but that was really it. And the question that was posed to me in the comments of the previous video was about some of the bigs in this draft because there are more shooting bigs. Granted, you know, Walker Kesler is like Rudy Gobear with softer hands. He can catch lobs better. He does have a little bit better of a postwork about him and he can shoot the midi a little bit better. Granted, not by much obviously judging from his free throw percentage and just the sheer lack of overall mid-range attempts that he takes. His free throw percentage last season or overall in his career is like in the teens. So granted, it’s also on a small sample size, but there’s a reason why it’s that low and we don’t encourage him to take more even though we were tanking because it’s just seems to be like a a lost facet of his game. So we know he’s a defensive anchor. That’s the one thing we know. That’s the proven thing about him. That’s really it. He moves his feet well on the perimeter and that’s a great starting point, but you wonder, okay, in this draft, could you end up getting a big that’s more reliable? We have Kyle Filipki from last year and we ended up getting him in the second round and that was a steal. That was the best pick that we made last year because he isn’t the greatest defensive presence. He’s not a rim protector at all, but offensively he offers a lot. He in many ways is the antithesis of Walker Kesler, if you will. He’s not a lob threat. He’s not known for extreme athleticism. He’s not known to be a rim protector at all. He’s not known to really move his feet terrifically on the wings. I would argue they’re one for one about the same. But he has that outside shot. He’s a little bit more confident. He can put the ball on the deck a lot better and he can playmake a little bit better than Walker can. So, I guess they’re kind of they they kind of balance each other out in a way, but you do have to question, okay, if there’s a great big on the board and we think that he fits what we would like to do going forward, should we take him or should we move our pieces around, move our draft picks around so that we can get them in a competent space instead of altering our entire plan to do it? And Justin Xanic said that it’s we’re in a position where as an organization we can’t afford to pick a specific piece that fits us. We just need to go best available. And that tells us just how the front office works because they’re not happy. Even uh Smith, the owner, he he was unhappy. He was talking on Twitter as a as a very begrudged fan talking about how he went to bed frustrated, woke up, went for a run, saw the sun rise over the mountains, and took a deep breath, chatted with a couple Jazz fans, and then reminded himself, got to get back on the horse, got to make something happen. And it’s one of those things where, yes, y’all thought tanking finally after the third year of some sort of rebuild was going to work. Granted, it didn’t work. We didn’t get where we wanted to get. So, we have to sit down and come up with a concrete plan of where we want to go moving forward. And if you’re the Jazz, do you want a trip to the third pick? Maybe. I don’t want Paul George on my team for three years. But at this point, we’re not going to do anything for three years. We’re we’re going to be terrible, at least guaranteed for next year because there’s no way they’re going to want to convey the Oklahoma City Thunder pick. And depending on who we get in this draft, unless something absolutely crazy happens in the first 20 games and they start showing out or Kee George all of a sudden decides to find his jumper permanently and start shooting borderline 50% overall from the field and 38% from three. You know, there’s not a world where we come out and we’re like, “Hey guys, we don’t need a tank now.” And then on top of that, we ended up adding uh Carlos Boozer to our study team for, you know, scouting. And obviously we know the lovely of the Boozer the more love appreciated I guess we’ll say of the Boozer twins Camboozer is going to be in the draft next year and that’s the one that we would love to end up getting our hands on. So there’s that. You also have AJ who’s at BYU and it just poses the question what what direction is it? I’m I’m personally willing to go as far as to say that we are going to tank next year. I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to take it in. But the the numbers, the moves, the conversations that are being had, they all indicate that that is the direction that we’re going in. Whether I like it or not. And I just, you know, as a fan of the game, I just have to accept it. I don’t have to appreciate. I don’t have to love it. I just have to accept it. Just like this year, I accepted the tank. I said, “You know what? just this one year. I’m gonna grit my teeth and I’m gonna stick it out just like every other fan has to. And I watched the games. I complimented the rookies for what they did do well and criticized them for what they didn’t do well. I complimented and criticized Keonte George. I talked about injuries. I talked about anything that could keep my mind off the fact that, you know, we were planning on losing games. Ju just anything that I could just to the copium was was crazy. I promise. And now we’re in the offseason with the fifth pick, the 21st pick, and two second round picks. And we don’t need four guys, four new guys on our roster. I said last video it was Jaden Springer and Si that both are on like non-G guaranteed deals up to a certain point. So they’re likely on the chopping block. At the same time, I would more than likely want to trade away a couple of our picks this year. So, if we could, even if we end up putting together the 21st pick and both second rounders to move up to like 18, 17, somewhere in the teens, I’d be fine with that because or or just taking that, packaging it up, and trading with somebody for next year’s draft pick. Somebody like the 76ers. I I would like to trade with the 76ers not just to move up in this draft, but to offload some of the picks that we have so far and to lock us in for a first round pick next year since we’re probably going to obviously tank. Do I want us to tank? Of course not. Like I’ve said probably four times already this video, but you know, adding Carlos Boozer to me really was like that that pin in the that pin to the board that told me it’s it’s likely going to happen because why else would you add Boozer? Now granted, you know, two-time ballstar, Jazz fans love him. It was nice having him here at the same time. Why else would you add him back at this particular specific time? Let’s be real. There’s coincidences and then there’s, you know, the obvious circumstances. If you see it’s cloudy outside and you just happen to bring an umbrella, well, you probably brought an umbrella because you saw the forecast and thought it was going to rain. That’s what I’m likely to believe. So bringing in Boozer symbolizes, you know, we’re probably going to tank and we’re going to be looking heavily at your son. So why don’t you help us out this year? Show us what you understand about the game, what you’ve put into him, and we can keep your son close to the vest and even if he doesn’t perform well in college, you know, we still feel comfortable making that move. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe that’s the next leaning thing in the top five. You know, I might I’ll make a different video, I think, where I focus more so on all the people that we could end up grabbing, but there’s a world where we see a lot of the players that we’ve taken in for interviews, I believe it’s eight players total. We all schedule workouts with them. They’re not all going to be available. Again, we’re at five under the assumption that we stay at five. Four of those guys should be gone. Now, there’s three guys that are getting some more buzz since the draft combine that I did want to touch on a little bit. One of them you guys know I’m pretty high on being Trey Johnson just because of his shooting efficiency and his overall size. But we got some official numbers. I love official numbers. I’m a big numbers guy. If you’re a fan of the channel, you know I’m a big numbers guy. He was listed officially as 6’4 and 3/4, 190 and a half pounds, 6′ 10 and a quarter wingspan. I like that. I like that a lot. And the 8 foot five standing reach. So comfortable. He’s a solid player. He can shoot really well. He’s really comfortable at the college level. Played at Texas. I think he’s going to be really comfortable at the NBA level. He may will he may take, you know, a little bit longer to get comfortable, but I believe before the end of his first season, we’re not going to see a Keonte George situation where he has, you know, a twoame spurt here, a four game spurt here. I think we might have 15 to 20 games where it’s like, okay, he’s finding his footing. He has one good game here, one good game here, but most of the games are rough. And then he just hits on. And it may not be something blistering hot, you know, he may not have a Jared McCain type season, but I think he is going to be consistently up there on the board as far as one of the top rookies and subsequently one of those guys that definitely has the next up card. There was also Washington State’s Cedric Coward, and he surprised me because while he was mildly on my radar, I didn’t really care too much. But the measurables put him on my radar a little bit more. 6’5 and a quarter barefoot, 213 pounds, 7 foot two and a quarter wingspan with an 8 foot 10 standing reach. That wingspan is lovely. Anybody that knows weak side defense, passing lanes, just just wing depth in general. We need we need that was one of the big reasons why I was just big on having Cooper flag. Aside from the fact that obviously he’s a phenomenal talent and if we can get somebody like that, especially if it doesn’t take us moving up in the draft to do, I would definitely be willing to entertain that project. That’s a project player that I think to me is worth it. And it’s not as if he’s a bad basketball player. I kind of like glossed over that. Made it seem like, yeah, he’s he’s Cody Williams coming out of college. That’s not what I’m saying. Cody Williams is a topic for an entirely different day. I could talk about him for about an hour and what we saw and more importantly what we didn’t see from him this season. Granted, he is drastically underweight. I need to see him have a Taylor Hendricks type weight gain arc this off seasonason because him versus his brother on the Thunder, it’s night and day. It’s not close. And one could argue that he will never reach the level that his brother’s on. Judging from what we saw last season, even in the G-League, where he still struggled, by the way, for the most part, he did have a few good games. I’m not going to sit here and play him like he’s just completely Basura, right? He’s not he’s not garbage. He’s just not well equipped to succeed at the NBA level at this current time. The third guy is Drake Pal. Obviously, Chapel Hill, you know, 6’5 and a quarter barefoot, 200 lb, 7 foot wingspan, 8 foot7 standing reach. A little bit under Cedric, but at the same time, still a reliable piece that is going to be higher on some people’s draft boards as a result of the numbers coming out. But at the same time, he’s not one of those guys where everybody’s going to say, “Oh, yeah, he should be in the top five. he should be top seven. They might say he’s closer to a lottery pick, closer to a lock of a lottery pick arguably, but I think that in a world where the Jazz are willing to trade and be a little bit more whimsical and frisky with their picks, it makes sense that we would entertain the opportunity of having one of these guys added to roster. Obviously, Trey Johnson’s going to be in the top five. If he’s there at five, grab him at five. I see there’s no reason for us not to. The efficiency, I believe it I said last video it was 6.8. 8 attempts from three-point range, shooting 40%. He was a lights out shooter. And to me, that combined with his reasonable length leads me to believe he can succeed at the next level. And he will take to being able to shoot at the NBA level a lot faster than some other guys. And honestly, if we do end up in a situation where either Larry Markin or Colin Ston, one of those guys, ends up getting the boot and sent out, despite them being comfortable right here, it would make sense that we do replace them with somebody that is a competent shooter. He’s a competent shooter. Obviously, this leans more towards Colin Ston being outed and the fact that it seems like Jordan Clarkson is eventually going to be out the door sooner than later just because he’s on the back end of his prime. injuries are piling up and why not let him play some reasonable basketball with some other squads that can actually use his services. I would argue that the 76ers would love to have Jordan Clarkson. So, working out a deal where he can go over there along with the 21st overall pick in exchange for the third. Maybe you have to throw somebody else in, depends on who it is. One person that I think is going to be struggling as a result of this draft right here is going to be Bryce Dabal. And that sucks because I’m I’ve realized there’s not a huge number a large number of like Bryce Sensipal believers. For me, I always felt more comfortable with him than I did even with Keonte George. Now granted, his fitness was a question mark for me as it should be and I still don’t think he’s at the perfect playing weight or size I guess to be playing extended minutes, you know, 35 minutes a night. But I can work with that because his shooting was much improved last year. He went from playing, you know, spot minutes at some points and being in the G-League for the majority of his rookie season to about twothirds through once we decided, hey guys, it is what it is. We’re bottoming out as much as we can at this point. Him coming in, starting some significant numbers of games and putting up numbers and we’re like, oh, you know, I see the potential. I see the possibility at Ohio State. He loved to shoot. He was that main guy. It wasn’t always the craziest deficiency you’ve ever seen, but he had a few really, really nice games. And then LA that year it was like, you know, at the NBA level he’s not as good as he was at the G-League. He’s not as good as he was at college, but he’s confident. He’s willing to shoot the ball. He’s taking good shots. His shot selection is where he needs to be coming into this season. And he has a couple 30-point games. He has some stretches where he’s consistently scoring anywhere from 12 to 24 points on great efficiency. And overall, his efficiency, especially from beyond the arc, was well. So, as a role player, it doesn’t get much better than Bryce Sensible. and he’s one of those pieces that I really want to stay on this roster because he’s not gonna have a terrific role. You know, he’s not going to be one of those guys where he’s always counted on to give you 15 to 20 points a night. But what he does when he touches the floor is give you consistent effort. He’s not going to get absolutely fried on defense like I thought he was after his rookie year. And he’s going to be able to space the floor despite no matter who you have on the floor. And no matter what he does, he doesn’t overdri the basketball. If he doesn’t like what he sees within the first two dribbles, you know, because he’s immediately looking to give the ball up to somebody else. If he likes what he has, then in the first five dribbles, the possession is going to end because the shot went up. And for the most part this year, it went well. Now, we lost games, right? I’m not excluding that. But for him individually as a player, as an offensive weapon, we know he’s not necessarily he’s like Jordan Clarkson and Kee George, a variation of them, I suppose. but obviously more efficient. Like if you said we have 18 shots to divvy up today and we’re giving most of them to Keonte George, I would argue that Bryce Sensible deserves more of those shots. Now granted, some of those shots are a little bit different, but when we’re talking about a guy who’s struggling to touch 34 35, you know, struggling to touch league average efficiency from beyond the arc while shooting borderline 10 attempts a night, over half of his attempts from the field are three-pointers for Keonte George. and it’s not necessarily significantly efficient and he’s shooting like high30s from the field overall as a result of that versus Bryce Cwell who’s 40s and 40s. Do I really need to spell it out any more than that? I’ve kind of been jumping around all over the place this video, so I apologize for that. But I had just a lot going on in my head. Wow. Leading up to this and I thought, you know, better to throw it out there and just throw pins at the board than do nothing like the Jazz like to do. Um, but you know, one thing that we do need to pay attention to as well is these rookie contracts. Now, we are we should be entering year four of Walker Kesler’s deal, which means yes, he’s still on a team option, but we want to get a deal done before this offseason. if I think it’s late October. It might be October 31st, the last day of October when the deadline is to create a deal because after that we have to wait until the off seasonason when he’s going to be a restricted free agent and obviously we’ll have dibs to match whatever anybody else puts on the table. But I don’t want it to get that far. I like Walker Kesler. He’s consistent. I like that he’s in my eyes a more productive, more reliable, more well-rounded slightly version of Rudy Gobear. So why would I want to wait to resign him? I wouldn’t because I think he’s also going to have a much better year this year. So if we can pay him based on last year and be like, “Hey, we think you’re going to do better, but judging from the way you were last year, you know, you don’t really have a jumper yet. You’re really not consistent from the free throw line.” I would use those things to like kind of play play the odds and make a reasonable deal. I don’t want to jip him out of money now, but I do want to be reasonable and keep in mind that there’s going to be some other guys that are going to need contracts sooner than later. And I think in a way that could end up leading to one of our more storied veterans ending up getting traded just because of financial issues because that was the case with the Minnesota Timberwolves obviously when they ended up offloading Cat in exchange for Julius Randle and surprise surprise it finally ended up working out about halfway through the season. They got things going and in the playoffs he’s having his first good playoff year ever. Ever like in his in his New York years he was bad in the playoffs. like he was a consistent no-show or negative showing. And as we go into the 2627 year, we have the options for Taylor Hendricks, Keonte George, Bryce Sensible, you know, Kyle Filipowski, and all this sort of stuff is coming up. 2627, 2728. So, they’re back to back to back and it’s a bunch of guys. So, do you want to wait until that point comes up and do them one at a time? Do them all at the same time? Try and have a conversation. Well, if you can reach this incentive deadline, then you know, we’ll be more apt to giving you this amount of money because then we’re going to get into a bidding war situation where guys are going to be hungry for minutes. It’s not just going to be about, oh, we’re fine losing. It’s pay me my bread. Because if we’re going to be losing, if we’re going to be struggling and you’re not going to give me the keys to the franchise, you’re not going to give me the opportunity to have an extended burn. Why am I here? Just let me go so I can go to a team that’s actually going to pay me and actually want me around. And that’s something that I don’t want to have to deal with at all. contract issues I hate, especially with the way the second tax apron and the CBA deals and all that sort of stuff is configured as of late because ultimately that was part of the reason why we ended up paying Lar marketing in the way that we did so that we can make sure we covered over 90 or 95 I think it was 90 90% of the salary cap because if you don’t there’s some restrictions that come with that you know you overspend salary tax extra stipulations middle of exceptions can’t touch those all that sort of stuff vet minimums can’t there’s a limits on all that sort of stuff if you’re also under the barrier Well, you can’t touch that money. There’s it’s it’s just so much stuff going on. So many moving cogs and machines. And if you’re the Utah Jazz and you’re struggling to find your identity, struggling to actually figure out where you’re going to end up being in this rebuild timeline because you said 3 to 5 years. We’re in we’re at the end of year three. So, two more years before you’re out of the rebuild and you’re a playoff caliber team. Could it be true? Definitely. Possibly. But you’re also in the Western Conference. So, are you a play is a playing team considered out of the rebuild mode? Is that is that what we’re going to take as being the thing that says yes, we were successful. Yes, we did what we were supposed to do. We tank next year. And then we decide, hey, we have all our pieces. We’re going to try and be a middling of the road team. We’re just outside of the playin in that fifth year. And then we say, okay, guys, the rebuild’s completed. We drafted some okay guy in 26 27. We have all our pieces. We’re going to take a couple years to get into that championship caliber conversation, but we’re ready. Then you have 30-year-old Larry Markin. You have 29year-old Colin Sexton. You have 29 or 30 year old John Collins. If you keep these guys on the roster, of course, because again, you know, you have to make sure you pay your rookies and make sure you keep them on the books sooner than later because if you wait till they get really, really good, you have to pay them really, really good money. And it gets hard to keep a core together. Are you willing? Is is Smith willing to go into the luxury tax? Is he willing to pay out out the cheeks like the Celtics did and all all these other teams? One thing I will give him though, granted, despite his decisions, he seems to genuinely like basketball. And that’s more than I can say about some owners. So, is he Steve Balmer with the Clippers? No. But just the fact that he seems to actually care like when the team’s terrible and us being terrible doesn’t get, you know, the the desired goal. Obviously, we were like, “Hey, we’re going to be bad this year so we can get the number one pick so we can get our savior so we can then be a competent franchise in the next two years.” Okay, solid plan. We lose out, don’t get the pick. Oh man, like Swiper the Fox, you know. So, seeing that he’s frustrated about that, I understand and I’m a little bit more appreciative of that. Do I like it? No. But I understand and I’m appreciative of the fact that he has emotions. He’s not just, oh well, we’ll do it again next year, guys. Haha. Just signing off and co-signing like we didn’t just sit there and fail. like acknowledge the failure, recognize it, take ownership, and then tell us what we’re going to do next. Tell us how we can rectify the situation or salvage it as much as we can. And part of it, I think they’re I think we’re definitely trading this this uh during this draft or a little bit before the draft. I would wager we go from four picks to two. I don’t think we go from four to three. I think we go from four picks to two picks. I think we package both of our second rounders along with that 21st overall pick to move up. Maybe we maybe we don’t trade the fifth pick at all. Maybe the fifth pick just stays the fifth pick. But I would likely believe that we might even throw a player in there just to move up into the teens by a comfortable margin. So anywhere from that I don’t remember what teams are 13 to 17, so don’t quote me on it, but somewhere from the 13 to 17, 13 to 18 range. trading all our picks just because we want to get rid of them and we want to focus on the young talent that we have. Unless we’re in the offseason right now and we look at the numbers from last year and we say I really don’t like so and so. Why you would give up on Cody Williams already? I don’t know. Some people might be willing to, right? Why you would give up Bryce on Bryce Sensible who’s shown the most progress from a shooting standpoint out of all of them, I don’t know, but it is possible, right? Why you would give up on Keonte George, I have an inkling of understanding, but I don’t know if you’re ready to do that yet. I think three years after this next year, if he doesn’t take the Walker Kesler jump where he still has issues that are glaring, but we see he’s obviously gotten better at the game of the basketball, then I think yes, Jonathan George might be seeing the chopping block. Isaiah Collier, Kylo Fipowski, obviously rookies that showed really, really strong presence in specific moments, in specific situations. They’re going to get better this next year. And even if they don’t, they showed me enough that if they stay at the same level this upcoming year, we can still see steady growth after that. I feel comfortable with those things. Those those don’t concern me. Those don’t scare me. So patching packaging three of our picks together in exchange for a slightly higher one or obviously getting the 76ers third overall picking picking at third and fifth. That would be the perfect way for this draft to go. if we could get, you know, Trey Johnson and then give me a big. Actually, I’ve I’ve been sitting on it. I’ve been thinking about it and even over the course of obviously recording this video, I’ve also decided, you know, give me give me top three. Give give me give me that top three pick. Give me that top five pick. Give me Trey Johnson. if you believe Ace Bailey um is can really be one of those ones if you’re not too discouraged by the fact that he obviously ended up getting dropped on leaderboards because he’s not 6’10 he’s 67 and a quarter 67 and a half barefoot but you still see the promise even though Ruckers didn’t really provide him and VJ Edgecomb with structure like they should have in my personal opinion that free roamingness if you can put that lightning in a bottle and channel it perfectly that’s the same as the lights that are right now reflecting off my skin. You know, if you think that, then grab him at five. If we could do two, if we could go that way, then I would say, you know, even though we didn’t get Cooper flag, I would say we did a darn good job for where we landed. And do we still want to tank this year? Maybe. Do you want to I said maybe like I have a choice in the matter. We’re going to take this year more likely than not. It’s gonna suck, but at least we’ll get to see something more promising. Maybe we’ll see the young guys take a really big step forward. And maybe we say goodbye to some of our veterans that we’ve come to know and love and thought we were going to have the opportunity to compete with in the very near future. And it’s just going to take a little bit too long. So even if they want to stay, we don’t let them. And it’s going to sting a little bit. Kind of like when Isaiah Thomas was with the, you know, the Celtics and they ended up shipping him off. That sucked because if you were a real Celtic fan back there, Isaiah Thomas was the Celtics. He was heart over height. He was aggression. He was, “I’m too little to play great defense, but I’m still going to try my hardest. In every bucket I give up, I’m going to give you one back.” That was the mantra of that. So, losing that really sucked to me. Do we have an Isaiah Thomas on this team? I would say maybe no. But, you know, Colin Ston and Larry Markin are the closest that you’re going to get to that. guys that love being here, guys that despite it all will give you their 110% effort when they’re on the floor. And those are guys you will want to go to war with on your team. You would rather play with them than have to deal with them on the opposing team, no matter what roster they’re that’s around them. You know what I’m saying? And then lastly, to close this bad boy out, the eight players, I found the list of the eight players that were both interviewed and are planned to have workouts with the Utah Jazz. Granted, this is if nobody if we’re unable to trade up if we don’t get the third pick from the 76ers and one through four get taken in order. I believe Dylan Harper is supposed to be grabbed at the second pick overall. I think that’s like a consensus agreement thing for the Spurs. Um you have obviously VJ Edgecom from Baylor, Ace Bailey from Ruckers, Trey Johnson from Texas, Con from Duke, Common from Duke, and then Jeremiah Fierce from Oklahoma, Kasparus Yakonis from Illinois, and Derek Queen from Maryland. All eight of those guys have a certain element of their game that puts them above the other guys in the draft. Obviously, their intangibles being their frames, their wingspans, their heights, all those sort of things also help. And then their mentality and understanding of the game also helps them. I could go in depth on that in a later video. I just didn’t want to make this one too drastically long. I know it’s already long enough and you’ve heard me drone on and on and on. But I’m trying to find the silver lining. It’s it’s there. You know, the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s It’s there somewhere. We just have to find it. And after seeing though seeing that number five pop up for the Utah Jazz, it made it a little bit rough. I’d be lying if it didn’t. If I said it didn’t, but just got to stay the course and see this bad boy through. And hopefully I have some good news for you guys when I drop the next video or just something more interesting. If you guys have any thoughts, anything you want me to touch base on in the next video, whether it be a topic, whether it be a specific player you want to hear an opinion about, let me know in the comments below. If you made it this far in the video, I appreciate you. I know it’s been a conversation. I know we’re all going through it, but you know, I’d like to think that we’re a better run organization than the Chicago Bulls for the Charlotte Hornets. So, with that in mind, hopefully things do get better sooner than later. We have a stronger sense of direction coming in because we don’t necessarily have the strongest one at the moment. and the sun will rise. And just as the sun rises, a fresh set of 24 hours gives us a new opportunity, a perspective. Also, I hope that you know, life’s treating each and every one of you well, or if it’s not going the greatest, it’s going better than the jazz situation is, and it’s trending in the upward direction. With that being said, though, it’s been your boy Roops. Thanks for joining this video. Go and smash that like button, subscribe to the channel, become a member to help support the content. And as always, good morning, good evening, and good night no matter where you’re in the globe watching. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you guys in the next one. Peace. [Music]

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In this video we discuss where the likely implications of recent Utah Jazz moves lead us to believe the direction of the team will be next.

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