ALERT – Utah Jazz Rebuilding EASIER than ever? DEBATE Tre Johnson, VJ Edgecombe, Jeremiah Fears?

ALERT – Utah Jazz Rebuilding EASIER than ever? DEBATE Tre Johnson, VJ Edgecombe, Jeremiah Fears?

The NBA’s new collective bargain agreement will make rebuilding faster, easier, and more efficient. I think next on Locked on Jazz. You are Locked on Jazz, your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. How are you? I’m David Lock, radio voice of the Utah Jazz. Jazz NBA insider. This is Locked on Jazz. It’s your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz, giving you insight, expertise, geeky numbers, and hopefully making it way better to be a Jazz fan each and every day. Thank you so much for making Locked on Jazz your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all podcasting apps as well as on YouTube. Join the community. Get in the conversation. Be a part of it. to the everydayers out there. You are simply the best. Thank you for making Locked On what it is. Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Today’s episode brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. Uh I do want to thank you, Art. Few things. uh Locked On as a network’s May numbers were incredible and Locked On Jazz May numbers were back up in the top five uh of each of our shows, both audio and video. And so that’s because you guys, thank you very much. Um glad to have everyone back. The numbers have been much higher recently. So super appreciate it. Here’s today’s plan. We’re going to do our same thing we’ve been doing all week long. If you haven’t caught it, go back. We’re d deeping dive. We’re deep d deep d deep diving on prospective picks at the fifth pick of the draft. Tomorrow we’ll look at Ace Bailey and we’ll look at the 21st picks with Raphael Barlo. Um today we’re looking at Trey Johnson of Texas who has been my favorite so far uh along the way because he can score and he’s a bucket getter and I like bucket getters. Uh we’ll hear from Rafael Barlo on him and we’ll hear uh from Brad Kelner locked on Longhorns host on him as well. First I want to do a thought exercise with you. Okay, this is usually on these shows if you do them right you have kind of a big takeaway and a thought and a big opinion and you guys can react. I could do that here. It’d be disingenuous. So, this is what’s been noodling in my head about where the NBA is and what’s taking place in the NBA and the impact of the new collective bargaining agreement. And something Austin Ames said the other day adds to it. So, let’s walk through it for a second. What the system used to be was that you got three stars generally or at least two very very high level stars and a third player. And then once you acquired those players, you fairly easily built around them through free agency, maybe an occasional trade. Very rarely draft picks, actually if you think about the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs, very rarely are you adding a young player to the mix. Youth is not a part of it. Those free agents you’re signing have to decide that because you have the first superstar players that it’s an appealing marketplace to be in. That’s kind of the game. The game used to be you go get the star players and then if you could, in the case of the Jazz when Derrick Harper said no and Ronnie Cycley said no, we couldn’t even do it that way. But you got those two or three star players. Very difficult to do. And you either got those by draft, Stockton Malone, Duncan, or you got them through free agency. Dwayne Wade stayed in Miami but Chris Bosch, LeBron James, etc. Okay. And then once you got them, you built around them and that was how you built a winning franchise. And that actually to some extent is what led to tanking because for those franchise that couldn’t play free agency, there really was very other little other ways to which you could get this done. So that’s what veterans were important. traded for their final pieces. That that’s the model. I think we have a different model here. So, first thing I think is that you cannot win without 240 minutes of quality basketball on your roster. 48 time 5. We’ve talked about this. If you’re an everydayer, you have been saying this to your friends and your friends think you’re really smart because we’ve been talking about this for three, four years now. You have two really, really high level all-star level players and we’ll see. Indiana’s a little Indiana’s a little unique. Let’s see how long this thing lasts in Indiana. Um, I mean, they’re great. They’ve been Eastern Conference Finals twice. There’s something real going on here. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying, but the East feels funky and just feels like there was some funky stuff there. But frankly, even if Cleveland had won, I’d say they have two highlevel players and maybe a third all-star level player. They didn’t have a top 10 player in the NBA either. And maybe Hallebertton should be thought of that. So you have two highle players, probably two all-star level players. And then you have another and one of those has to be on the ball. Okay. One of those has to be on the ball. Then in the new I think in the new model, you’re developing some of your own talent. you’re able to build a cadre of players toward your 240 minutes and add the allstars on top and get pretty big results. I think we’ve seen a minor version of this which is Houston took their young players, had some depth, put non-allars Fred Vleet and Dylan Tom Brooks on top and got something. We’ve seen a little bit with Detroit who had Kade Cunningham coming to his own young players and he’s the star and they put they just added some depth to it and got results. Not great results, but some results. Indiana has a pretty good team and they add Pascal Seakum on top for nothing and they’ve been to the conference finals and the NBA finals twice. your top players in the NBA. Here’s the key to what I think’s about to happen because the first and second apron are so prohibitive and particularly the second and because you’re not trying to do three stars and then build around them because what happens now is if you get the three stars and you’re in the first or sec the first or second you cannot acquire talent. Okay. So, in the old model, you got two or three stars and then you just acquired the talent underneath them and you added it up and you got your Robert Ory and your Derek Foxes and your not Derek your uh uh what the heck was this? Uh Rick Foxes and Derek Fischers and and you built your roster. You can’t do that anymore in this new collective party agreement because the first and second apron are so prohibitive. So, to some extent, you have to have built your cadre of depth to get your 240 minutes prior to adding your all-star on top. I think I think I don’t know, but this is my thought exercise. And if this is the case, this makes rebuilding much faster because you use these draft picks and maybe Kee George isn’t a starter or star, but he’s a 22-minute guy and Isaiah Collier’s a 15-minute guy and Philip Powski is a 22-minute guy. And they’re not stars or starters, but they’re pieces of your puzzle. And you’re put and then you you’re actually putting you’re not you’re putting the ice cream on top, not the whipped cream if we want to use an analogy. Bad one, but go with it. So, because the first or second apron’s there, the minute you go sign your stars and you’re near the second apron, you can’t be acquiring your 240 minutes. Look at Denver. Look at Milwaukee. Look at Phoenix. Look at Philly. So, what’s going to end up happening is the top players in the league are going to be distributed more widely. That second and third best player on a roster is going to get moved because if someone is short, Michael Porter Jr. gets moved now so that they can use that money to get 240 minutes of depth. Miles Turner maybe doesn’t get resigned in Indiana because it’s not just Miles Turner, it’s going to cost them two other players. Minnesota’s trade of getting Dante Danchenzo and Julius Randall for 60 minutes a night instead of Carl Anthony Towns for 34 minutes a night was genius. So your roster is going to be two all-star level players. Maybe a third is really good. A lot of depth acquired via trade in free agency. Your free agency is going to be your 12 million, 14,$16 million a year player who somebody who’s up on the second or third apron can’t afford and he fits into your roster. Obie Topham was just kind of let go by New York, but a good example in Indiana. Bruce Brown bounced around for a while, helped Denver win a championship. and your top tier players are going to be more widely distributed amongst the 30 teams. I Cleveland shouldn’t touch anything right now. They have five of the top 50 players in the world, four of the top 50 players in the world on the roster. I don’t think anyone’s going to do this again. Cleveland should hold this together. They should probably win a title next year because they have four of the top 50 players in the world. It’s what Boston had. I Boston’s not going to be able to do it. Chris Absoring, Drew Holiday, they’re going to have to make moves and then Jason Tatum’s out. So, this is my thought exercise on why this and so then why does this get easier to rebuild? Because if the top players are going to be distributed more widely, then as a young team building up, Houston, Detroit, Utah in a few years, you have your young players, you have your 240 minute minutes of depth first because you’ve been drafting players and getting high quality players and you probably have some cap space to go get that $14 million player or $13 million and then you trade in your last piece in a way that I don’t think you used to be able to do so because trades I believe are going to be abundant. Austin Ains’s comment to me was we used to hold on to players because bird rights mattered and they don’t matter anymore. And the reason bird rights don’t matter anymore is because you’re not going to over pay your own free agent just to keep them because every dollar against toward the first apron or second apron is so painful that it’s you’re going to end up letting that player go or it’s going to be a player becomes available to someone else. And the second thing he said is, “We used to keep on expiring contracts just so you could trade them, but trades are going to be much easier now. And we’re going to negotiate deals tighter and harder than we ever have before because every million matters. So, no one’s going to go, we used to just resign a free agent, your own free agent, and if he got an extra 20 million, who cares?” Well, now you care. and you used to trade for a player and you didn’t that if he got a little extra fine. You can’t do that anymore. But that also means those players going to become more available, more easily available. And then the percentages by which to make a trade that you have to get the salaries in if you’re not in the first or second apron are way easier than they ever been. So there’ll just be much more player movement. That’s my theory. Love your comments. Love your ideas whether you think that’s true or not here in the process. Trey Johnson deep dive with Raphael Barlo. Is this a star? Is this a Devin Booker 20 minute score or a Jordan Pool 20 minute a night score? Coming up next on Locked on Jazz. Today’s show is brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel. NBA Finals about to get going. Major League Baseball is rolling and now is the time to get involved and get into the action with FanDuel delivering high light performances every night. Major momentum shifts. Are you in on the action when it happens? Don’t miss those moments. Whether it’s the gamechanging shot, the breakout player, there’s more time for you to be in the action and more fun. FanDuel makes it easy to stay in the game before tip off during the game, live during game with player props, performance trends, same game parlays. Fans have more ways than ever to play smart and win big. Which players are showing up for the biggest moments? Who’s going to be the player tonight that makes all the plays? Where are you going over under? Is this a good Jaylen Williams or a bad Jaylen Williams game? Jump on it. New to FanDuel? Well, that’s a perfect time to sign up. If you’re new to FanDuel, head to FanDuel.com. Place your first $5 bet. If it wins, you’ll get $200 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. Thanks so much for making Lockdown Jazz your first listen of the day. I do sincerely greatly appreciate it. We’ve got some great stuff for you. And that of course is Raphael Barlo’s locked on NBA big board. He’s going to join us here in just a sec. Here’s what we’ve done all week. If you’ve missed it, we have gone to Raphael Barlo, NBA draft expert for locked on NBA big board and get his newsletter as well. Get his whole big board, all the great stuff that’s available and we’ve taken and looked at VJ Edge. We’ve looked at Jeremiah Fears yesterday and today we’ll look at Trey Johnson. Tomorrow we’ll look at Ace Bailey. Khan Canipple certainly is on the board and being considered by the Jazz at five. Malawatch is being considered by the Jazz at five. I just can’t wrap my head around either of those two yet. So these are the four I think we’re looking at. One two of them will be available for the Jazz. And I can’t I’ll be surprised if we go Khan Canipple or Malawich over the top of one of these two guys. And I think this is where we’re going to have you’re gonna like we should all you almost could play the equations, right? So if Ace Bailey goes three, VJ Edgecom goes four, you decide between Trey Johnson and Jeremiah Fierce. What’s your pick? If VJ Edge goes three and Trey Johnson goes four, your decision is Jeremiah Fierce or Ace Bailey. What’s your pick? You can actually just play this out. Trey Johnson goes three, Jeremiah Fierce goes four. Your choice is Ace Bailey or Trey Johnson. Like figure it out. Gets kind of fun. Let’s start with the draft expert Raphael Barlo on Trey Johnson. Trey Johnson out of Texas. I will admit me and my numbers they he’s big green on my script. There’s like four or five guys on my script that are green this year. Cooper Flag, Dylan Harper, Trey Johnson, Jacece Richardson, uh Nick Clifford, and Walter Clayton Jr. The old guys always pop off the list at the bottom. And uh Nick Clifford and Walter Clayton Jr. So Trey Johnson jumps off to me numbers-wise. Give me an overall viewpoint of his game. Bucket getter, he is the type of player that I think is going to be a 25 point per game scorer in the NBA. He led the SEC in scoring. The SEC was the the toughest league in the history of college basketball based off the number of teams in the NCAA tournament. And as a freshman, he led the SEC in scoring. Did not have a lot of a lot of creators around him as far as guys that could set him up for open looks. So, a lot of his shots were contested, heavily contested, but he still shot 39% from three on six attempts per game with a hand in his face. So, I think that he’s going to be better in the NBA. He’s a better passer than he’s given credit for. He’s kind of been unfairly labeled or or put into this box as just a a chucker or a scorer, but there’s a lot more to his game than than just putting the ball in the basket. The two criticisms of him, cuz I kind of fell in love with him the first time I watched him. I like bucketters. The two criticisms were one, you just mentioned he doesn’t pass, and two, he doesn’t get to the rim. I I honestly didn’t leave any of the games I’ve watched of him feeling that. Like I thought his teammates sucked. Um which was part of it. No offense to the other Texas Longhorns, but I didn’t think they’re very good. And I just didn’t think there was any room to drive at all. Yeah, he’s a player that I’ve been watching since he was in 10th grade in high school. So I’m I’m very familiar with his game. He’s always been able to get to his spots, and that’s like one of the key things you look for. Can he get to his spots? And so for him, yes, he doesn’t consistently put the type of pressure on the rim that you would like, but I I feel like Devin Booker doesn’t consistently put a lot of pressure on the rim, but Devin Booker can get to his spot, and Devin Booker is an underrated passer. I even think a guy like Tyler Hero doesn’t always get to the rim. So, if Trey is somewhere between Tyler Herro and Devin Booker, I mean, I think that’s that’s a win, especially if he falls if he falls to number five. But, he’s a in my opinion, he’s just a very underrated pastor. And if you just watch his passing clips, he can make skip passes, live dribble passes, he can hit the roll, man. He can find the lob threat. And I just think that people have just unfairly compared him to Cam Thomas. It is. That’s like they love that one. I I don’t know if I think that’s fair. All right, we’ve kind of touched on the the reason he I mean I think he scores 20 points in the NBA. I guess the question is whether he does it as Jordan Pool or he does it as Devin Booker, right? Yeah. Yeah. Not all 20s are equal, right? What causes him to what what’s his what’s his failure? What’s his problem? If the athleticism concerns because he’s a good athlete. I I want to make that clear. He’s a good athlete, but he doesn’t always play athletically. So, if he’s unable to get to the rim or or get by defenders and he has to heavily rely on contested shots, then I think that could play a major role in his efficiency numbers and you know, it’s an analytics driven game and being efficient is is the key to to playing especially on on good teams. So that could be a concern. But if he makes it, it’s just because he’s just a phenomenal scorer that can score at the mid-range and he’s a knockdown outside shooter and a better playmaker than than you know people think he is. Okay. Uh we asked this question about Ace Bailey. Is there a like a route by which on a team that works for him? Is it is he better off going to one type of team or one type of system? Is there something which works better for Trey Johnson than some other place? Yeah, I mean I think for him because he can shoot and he’s such a good shooter and again 39% on heavily contested threes on six attempts means that he’s probably going to look even better if he has, you know, like if he’s he’s on a team where there’s somebody that can create open looks for him. I think he can play anywhere unfairly or maybe it’s fair or not unfair, but there is a part of me that would like to see him go to a team where he is given the keys from day one and he can have the ball in his hands and actually show that he’s more than just a guy that can score and and give him some teammates. I don’t want to say his teammates sucked. That was pretty strong. but give him some NBA level teammates and see what he does because when he was in high school at Link Academy, he played some point guard and I thought he played well there. And so, um, maybe the best situation for him is a team like Utah where he could be given the keys from day one. I think most Jazz fans would like it. I know I would like it. I thought that little last note there from Raphael was important that he played point guard in high school. It’s the opposite of Keonte, right? Keonte played almost no point guard in high school. his point guard got hurt and then he got thrown into the position a little bit in Dallas. It wasn’t natural to him. The pick and roll numbers for Trey Johnson at so far in in his one year at Texas were very very good. Um so to me that’s encouraging. I I will I would be as of we sit here on the 5th of June if the Jazz end up with Trey Johnson I’m ecstatic. I I think he’s the Tyler Hero, Devin Booker combo type concept is is would be fabulous. Um I don’t know that that’s your superstar, but it’s certainly a major piece and would be great. Um I also will be surprised if he gets to five at this point. I just think he’s better than the other guys. Um by the way, Trey Johnson ran 125 pick and rolls at Texas. He was in the 80th percentile of players that ran at least a 100red pick and rolls. Uh probably actually let me back that up. At least 80 pick and rolls. It’s 100’s five a game, 80s three a game. Here were the guys that were better. Cooper Flags in the 91st percentile. Dylan Harper’s in the 82nd percentile. Uh Jace Richardson is in the 95th percentile. Nick Clifford is in the 95th percentile. And that’s it. Keonte George while he was at Baylor ran 153 pick and rolls was in the 66th percentile. Um we’ve had one of the our listeners done some great work for me to try to figure out whether or not there’s a correlation between good pick and roll percentage and NBA success. And actually there does not seem to be but it’s a good indicator of just what he can and can’t do. So it doesn’t pre does not suddenly say oh you’ll be great in the NBA. Local expert next on locked on Jazz. It’s locked on Longhorns Brad Kelner digging deeper into Trey Johnson. Continuing with the local experts, we turn to Brad Kelner, locked on Longhorns, Trey Johnson. All right, so here’s what I do every year, Brad, is I don’t watch college basketball for one in one minute, honestly, and then I start sometime in April or May. And the first game I watched was Texas Oklahoma. And I left in love with Trey Johnson. At the time, I’m convinced he was like 11 or 12 on draft boards. People were talk and I’m like, who is this kid? He’s scoring 20 to 25 a night in the NBA. So, what was your first like takeaway from him? And am I nuts and got him on a right day or is that the Trey Johnson that you see? Well, David, my first takeaway of Trey Johnson was the same as every Longhorn fan. The first game that Trey Johnson played in his freshman season, his only season at the University of Texas was a neutral sight game against Ohio State in Vegas, a game that Texas actually lost. But Trey Johnson had 29 points in that game on 50% shooting. He made five threes. And even though Texas lost, it was like, “Oh, we’ve got something special here.” And he set a Texas record, breaking Kevin Durant’s record for the most points ever scored by a Longhorn in a Longhorn debut. So, if you’re able to do something that even Kevin Durant couldn’t do during his time in college basketball, you’re doing something right. So, that was my first impression of Trey Johnson. And yeah, he had a few of those performances throughout the year where he just took your breath away with his ability to score at all three levels. And uh even though Texas as a team didn’t have the year that they wanted to have, Trey Johnson was sensational and he dang near single-handedly carried the Longhorns to the NCAA tournament this past season. Let’s go off the court to start because you have more all the draft stuff we talk about and all I ever look at is on the court. He’s a 19-year-old freshman. Does Texas hide him and keep him away from the media? Did they let him go talk to the media? How did they deal with it? That’s a great question. And Trey Johnson actually represented Texas SEC media days before the season began. I can’t recall a time I’ve ever seen a true freshman get invited to conference media days in any sport for any team. But that just goes to show you how highly this coaching Trey Johnson, not only as a player, but obviously as a leader, too. And he kind of was the team leader for Texas. So, no, they didn’t hide him. They didn’t shelter him from the media. Like, they made him available early and often. And uh yeah, he was he was a team leader for Texas off the court. So they uh they bought into him very very early on. So I was not particularly impressed with his teammates. I don’t think any of them will play in the NBA. I don’t think I’ll call any of their games at any point in their lives unless I’ve got a surprise there. I didn’t know about one of the big guys maybe. Um well, you never know. Like guys make it for a brink a little little bit. Um so and I made that clear in the last segment with Raphael. Um but I it’s unusual to hear what you just said because 18year-old 19-y old freshman that be one and done don’t become leaders. How did he do that? Right. That’s it’s crazy. I mean, look, he was a top five recruit in college basketball coming out of high school. It was a huge get for Rodney Terry when he was the head coach at the University of Texas. And um yeah, I mean, look, Texas was kind of a random put together team. They lost a bunch of guys from their roster two years ago. So, they went to the transfer portal a lot. They didn’t have a lot of returning players from two seasons ago back from last year. So, there was an opportunity there and a little bit of a void in leadership on the Longhorn roster. And again, Trey Johnson, I think I think everybody knew that he was going to be Texas’s best player from the moment he got on campus, right? Anybody who had watched his high school tape at Lake Highlands or at IMG Academy, they kind of saw that this kid was special and they knew there was a chance that he was going to be the best player on Texas right away. And uh again with that sort of void in leadership with a bunch of departing players from the previous year there was an opportunity there for Trey and he took it and ran with it. All right. So when we talked to lockdown Baylor and we talked to John locked Oklahoma we talked so much about the freshman of EJ Edge and Jeremiah Fears their es and flows of the season as a freshman. Did you see the same es and flows from Trey Johnson? Definitely. Definitely. He had uh he had a little bit of a freshman wall kind of midway through conference play. Now he ended the year really strong, but you know, I think he got a little bit tired because he was the primary scorer for Texas and he was attracting other teams best defenders and he was attracting a lot of double teams uh on nights in conference play because like you said, David, the Longhorns didn’t have enough other guys who were good enough to beat you. So opposing coaches were focusing all of their attention on trying to shut down Trey Johnson to where he had to work for his buckets. And that sometimes led to poor shot selection, right? He felt like he had to carry the team. So, he would jack up a few shots that maybe weren’t the best early in the shot clock. And I think that led to him again hitting a little bit of a freshman wall midway through the year. But he got hot down the stretch. There was a point where it looked like Texas wasn’t going to make the NCAA tournament, the regular season finale against Oklahoma and then in a couple of games in the SEC conference tournament in Nashville. Trey Johnson got hot again at the right time and kind of willed Texas into uh March madness. So yeah, there were es and flows for sure. It wasn’t always perfect. There were some off shooting nights, but David, so this was the best year the SEC has ever had as a conference. And you could argue it’s the best year any conference has ever had in the history of college basketball. I mean, the SEC SEC got more teams into the dance than any league in any season. And Trey Johnson as a true freshman led the conference in scoring. Like that’s incredibly difficult to do. So, even though there were a lot of es and flows and it wasn’t the smoothest roller coaster ride all season long, he was still able to do enough to uh lead maybe the best conference in college basketball history in scoring in his one year. Who uh two criticisms that are being thrown about him, you touched on one of them is one is he’s a gunner and and two is that he can’t get to the rim. I have to say because I’m kind of on board on this kid. I didn’t see that in the three games I’ve watched. I thought he didn’t get to the rim because there was no room and I thought he didn’t I didn’t find him to be a gunner. In fact, maybe I’m because I’m only watching him and I would have liked him to shoot more. Um I really did not see that. What’s your thoughts on those two criticisms? Yeah, I I would go to two sort of other criticisms before I looked at that. He can definitely finish at the rim. I mean, he is a true three-level scorer. Uh a great three-point shooter, great from the mid-range. I know that’s kind of a lost art in today’s NBA. But Trey Johnson has the ability to knock it down from the mid-range. And yeah, I I I would have liked him at times to be more aggressive, but I don’t think he wasn’t good at finishing. I just at times I thought he settled a little bit more when I thought he was capable of finishing at the rack. And he’s also a great free throw shooter, so if he got fouled, it felt like an automatic two points when he got to the line. Um, so I disagree with that. And again, I think part of the reason why he jacked up or gunned as many shots as he did was Texas just didn’t have a whole lot of scoring options. Like it felt like, you know, even a a shot that some people would say like, “Oh, that’s a horrible shot. How could you do that?” That type of shot was better for the Texas offense than running their actual offense and somebody else coming up with a cleaner look. So, I didn’t have a problem with that. I I think the two sort of big issues, if you will, with Trey Johnson, the defense just he he’s got to get better. he would get targeted. I think part of the reason why he was so bad on defense was because he had to expend so much energy on the offensive end of the floor, but there’s no doubt his lateral quickness wasn’t quite good enough to uh to hang in the SEC. And other teams would, you know, do pick and rolls and they would find ways to attack Trey on that end of the floor. So, that’s an area where he can improve. And then, you know, we talked about his maturity. He’s a mature kid, but at times he would wear his emotions on his sleeve a little bit too much. and if he was struggling shooting the ball a little bit or if the team was struggling a little bit, he would let that get to him. And I think that could also impact his defense at times. So, look, I I I think he won’t have to do that in the NBA cuz there’s going to be tons of other talent around him to where he doesn’t have to shoulder as much of the load as he did in his one year in Austin. But those to me, the defense and then sometimes letting his emotions get the best of him. Those are the two things I think any NBA team that drafts Trey Johnson are going to have to work on more than anything on the offensive end. The likelihood he goes to he I doubt he goes three to Philadelphia, but he could. Or he goes to a Charlotte where he becomes kind of their third best player with LaMelo and Brandon Miller. He comes to the Jazz where he becomes either their first or second best player with Lowry Markin. and he goes to the Wizards where he becomes their best player. Is so let’s let’s take is he better off being kind of secondary to start off in his career in a Charlotte or Philadelphia or is he better off being the show right away in Utah or Washington? That’s a great question. Look, I I I always want rookies to not have to be the guy, right? Some guys are obviously capable of it. they can come into the league and just be a team leader right away. And I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t think Trey can be that dude. But again, just seeing him have to shoulder all of the load like he did at Texas if he can have a running mate. Uh I think the biggest problem for Trey is Texas didn’t really have a true point guard. So they tried to, you know, square peg round hole or round peg square hole, whatever the expression is with Trey Johnson, I think a little bit too much and make him more of a point guard. if he’s got somebody who can set him up and give him cleaner looks off the bounce, then I think that’s going to help him out a lot. So, again, I I I know I’m kind of dodging the question here. Do I think he can be a team’s best player/leading scorer from day one? Yes. But, uh, like anybody else, I I would love for him to be paired with somebody else who could take the pressure off of him. It’s like, hey, if Trey has an off night, the team still has a chance to win because they’ve got other go-to options. That I think would be the best case scenario for Trey when he gets to the league. So, I generally believe he’s going to score 20 points a game in the NBA, but that can be a lot of different things. That can be Jordan Pool. Yeah, that can be Devin Booker. I don’t know where Bradley Beal fits into that anymore if that’s a positive or a negative. Let’s call Devin Booker a positive. Let’s call Jordan Pool a negative. Is he a Jordan Pool 20 a game or is he a Devin Booker 20 a game? Yeah, that’s I think he’s somewhere right in between there, right? And the only thing, you know, we all know what happened with Jordan P. uh Jordan Pool and Golden State, right? Like I don’t think he’s that type of negative energy, but again, I do wonder a little bit about the emotions letting those get the best of him. That’s the way Trey Johnson becomes Jordan Pool. I don’t think it’s he’s that type of player. I just think maybe his emotions detract him from getting where he can get uh in the NBA. But man, I mean, if he if he could be Devin Booker, I Tyler Herro is another name I think about too. A really good scorer who can score at all three levels, who can create for himself, but also can shoot uh, you know, off a pass or off the dribble, whatever. Uh, that’s another name I would look at. Yeah, in in the right situation, I mean, Trey Johnson, again, he’s a pure shooter. I think he’s the best shooter in this class. I think he’s the best pure scorer in this class. So, uh, in the right system, I think he’s got a shot to be a little closer to Devin Booker than, uh, than Jordan P. Brad Kellner’s got to go because Kong Canipple’s on line three. Kong Canipple on line three about who’s the best shooter in the draft. Brad, thanks so much for the time. Appreciate it. Great to get your insight for on Trey Johnson. Keep up the good work on lockonghorns. Appreciate you, David. Same to you. Thank you. Now heard the local expert and Raphael Barlo on VJ Edge, Jeremiah Fierce, and Trey Johnson. My guess is Ace B. We’ll do a Bailey tomorrow, but my guess is he’s going before them. Of those three, from what you’ve heard, who would you take? You can vote at locked onjazz on YouTube in our community or just hit me on X and let me know who would you take. That’s Locked on Jazz today. Thanks for tuning in. Fivestar reviews are appreciated. Throw some comments in the comments section. Interact with everyone. Thumbs up, hearts, all those good things. We love them. Subscribe. Follow me on socials at DLock09. Have a great one. Now we send you the first ever 247 national NBA channel locked on NBA. Check out Locked on NBA big board with Raphael Barlo for all the latest draft news.

David Locke, radio voice of the Utah Jazz and Jazz NBA Insider, explores the potential impact of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement on team rebuilding strategies. He proposes a shift from the traditional model of acquiring multiple superstars to a more balanced approach of developing depth before adding top-tier talent. This change could lead to faster, more efficient rebuilding processes and wider distribution of star players across the league.

The episode also features an in-depth analysis of NBA draft prospect Tre Johnson from Texas. Locke discusses Johnson’s scoring ability, comparing him to players like Devin Booker and Tyler Herro. Insights from draft expert Rafael Barlow and Locked On Longhorns host Brad Kellner provide a comprehensive look at Johnson’s strengths, potential areas for improvement, and his possible fit with teams like the Utah Jazz, Charlotte Hornets, or Washington Wizards.

0:00 NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement
5:24 Two high-level players needed for success
10:34 Rebuilding becomes easier with new CBA
16:13 Rafael Barlowe on Tre Johnson’s game
23:56 Brad Kellner discusses Trey Johnson at Texas
29:35 Addressing criticisms of Trey Johnson’s play
34:44 Wrap-up and comparison of draft prospects

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