Tim LaComb: Utah Jazz have afforded themselves flexibility to move in any direction they see fit
join Hans and Scotty G today from noon to 3 they’re going to be at Kenny Jay’s Barbecue mouthwatering ribs savory brisket and all your barbecue favorites 11610 District Drive in South Jordan dj and PK time to welcome Tim Lome back to the show Utah Jazz analyst for the SCG media tim good morning good morning do you fancy yourself barbecue guys uh I’m no expert in I mean I like it but uh Well then get overies man people who can sit there and rank their favorite 50 places yeah I can’t do that no me neither i Hey barbecue’s barbecue now see those are fighting words hans and Scotty would totally disagree i understand and that’s kind of why I said it there you go question of the morning what moves should the Jazz make elbow Austin right in the ribs knock him out of that chair take the big chair for yourself what would you do i would make good moves yeah okay good well yeah I’d make great one so there um No you know it’s crazy because I think um part of making a great deal is understanding the marketplace and understanding what’s going on and I think through the years that’s certainly been a strength of Danny A certainly Austin Ang but it really is a big part of it you know um it’s hard to conjecture into the void and you know there’s a lot of things going on watch Twitter every day tons of things being reported about this guy’s available that guy’s available i I think at the end of the day it’s it comes down to moves that make you better uh for the long term the Jazz have a ton of capital a lot of different directions they go they could go um but it really depends on who’s who’s willing to make somebody available out there who’s willing to deal but there are certainly a lot of interesting names around the league you know both in terms of the players that are coming up on free agency or part of trades and then the whole draft thing is is really intriguing every year one of the things that I keep hearing is that oh you don’t want to just make yourselves uh a little bit better because you want to make yourselves great i’m wondering if that’s possible without getting a little bit better before you get great i mean you look at OKC and look at their trajectory and that’s exactly what they did and now they’re great so why not if you have an opportunity particularly not with a 35year-old but with somebody who’s a you know basically to me I I I said earlier that if you could give me I would trade John Collins for John Collins 5 years younger he’s not going to make you great but he can make you better and as long as it fits in the timeline why not go that way instead of trying to shoot for the moon big game hunting and then you come away with nothing all the time no I think there’s a lot to be said for that and I think that’s one of the things I’m excited to see the way you build a roster nowadays um is vastly different you know I think the the way that you’ve got to wedge salaries in and make everything work there’s uh there’s a lot of complexity and then you know but I I think what has not changed is understanding personnel and players and you know I really like the move the Jazz made to get John Collins he was a guy that I really liked around the league watching him watching the Jazz play against him you know and there’s there’s guys like that you know that if made available and and the the deal fits you know the Jazz could make it but I think that is the that is the essence of building a team now is you’ve got to do it through the draft you’ve got to do it with wise moves and free agency um obviously trades and then you know that all that draft capital that the Jazz have um it’s stuff that you know is very valued particularly by organizations out there that have made their road a little harder by giving everything away and so there there’s a lot of appeal to what the Jazz have to offer and it’s just a matter of you know who’s interested in in what piece and what are they willing to give you for it you think there’s any chance for that 21 pick and an asset or two how far up do you think you could trade how far up would it be possible to move we’ve had some people who who really want a second top 10 pick in this draft i’m not sure um you know depending on on the trade and how it’s structured i mean it’s hard to get into the top 10 and um but once you’re in there you know moving around may be a little easier so you know there’s always been talk about the Jets trying to move up with five but perhaps you know a player in 21 can you get close to that i would say you could probably get in the teens you know um but again I’m not watching the market every day that’s just kind of where my gut goes for historic but we’re we’re in a different time and capital’s viewed differently so um I I think it’s a great you know great idea great suggestion but we’ll see we’ll see what direction they go here in not too long this is something that didn’t seem possible in the dead of winter particularly in January but I thought when it got to the point of having a bunch of offseason workouts that Jaor Denim would flourish and he’d be perceived as much better than maybe we perceived him in the team concept with BYU during the early part of the conference season and he’s one of 13 so far that have received an invite to the green room which means that he’s expected to go fairly high that does not surprise me at all travis Hansen says he’s expected to be uh they expect his group between seven and 12 i think it was I think I I wouldn’t shock me if he’s a top 10 pick uh what do you say to that as far as him and his draft status because it seems like it is really rising well no I I think you hit it on the head it’s um I expect him to go in the top 10 i think his size you know was really impressive but what what stood out to me the first time I watched him is his vision his ability to see things and just like everybody else changes levels and changes um you know the the leagues or or what you’re used to him coming over here was you know that was different than what he expected and I think playing through it and the highs and the lows you know and not really focusing on I I think there was a time where he dropped down in mock drafts you know quite quite a ways and and not to be affected by any of that but just work you know get up every day and work and it said a lot to me that that team came around because you know he was the guy running the point the guy with the ball in his hands um and I’ve seen teams that have a lot of talent you know not be able to function on the court and and really slide but in this case you know BYU went through some tough stuff and then they were able to to find their way and I thought Jagor was great really really good in the NCAA tournament um so I I think his future is really bright it’s awesome that Travis is involved because he’s a great influence and you know really kind of understands having gone through the NBA um that whole thing so I think he can help him visualize and and understand what’s going on kind of give him some coaching but I fully expect him to go top 10 and I think he’s got a chance to be a really good NBA player as he adds you know more wisdom and more size have you fallen in love with someone you think the Jazz uses the fifth draft pick on um I really like Trey Johnson from what I watch i mean I I think scoring is a is a big part it’s a premium in the league right now particularly shooting um for a lot of different reasons but you know with Isaiah Collier watching him play last year how he gets guys shots not not just in the half court but minute he gets the ball in transition eyes are up you know if guys run the floor you can really find them and I think just more shooting you know it never hurts um I really like Trey Johnson i like Edgecomb i think he’s got a little burst to him he’s definitely got an NBA um feel to him and um and then you know I like Coniple i think he’s a guy who can really function you know PK you talked about you know getting in and playing and making an impact i think he’s a guy can do that early because I think he understands you know perhaps one of his greatest tools is his mind and so he understands spacing and personnel and when to attack and when to to move the ball i think he has that great nuance so I mean there’s three names right there that should be kind of in the equation um and it really just depends on you know what the Jazz decide where they want to go with that we’ve got a guy named Brian Getsiler who does NBA TV and NBA radio he’s out of New Jersey very close to where I grew up so we have him on and he is a talker he proposed uh going after Malwatch the big kid out of Duke and then using Kesler as trade bait to potentially get another higher draft pick i hadn’t thought of that but it intrigued me as far as that goes because he seems to be very high and he talks to NBA people he does shows with N exNBA guys Sam Mitchell whomever it might be i’ve heard him many times on NBA radio and so he’s thinking that that might be something and that was a new idea for me what is your response to that yeah I don’t think there’s anybody i mean as much as I love Kesler and as much as I think um he really played his way into um some big money last year I think his the way he approached this season after having a lot of disappointment and working through it i had a chance to talk to him a couple of times this year and you know one of the times I talked he he me talked about how hard you know it was mentally uh to get through it all and and so I think his his approach and his mindset and his resolve was awesome and then he put it all to good use he became a absolutely dominant rebounder we already knew about uh rim protection um but his rebounding in space I mean sorry in traffic was was eye opening um his his uh resolve to go get second chances for the Jazz was off the chart you know that number was typically crooked most nights but that being said you know you’re trying to build the team you’re trying to build the team fast you know that gives you in essence another crack at it you know if you’re if you’re gonna move Kesler that’s gonna that’s going to require something big so yeah i mean because I I’ve heard great things about Malawatch too i think he’s a guy who shares a lot of those same attributes um but you know they say it’s better to have you know that bird in your hand than in the tree uh and you know what you’ve got with Kesler so that’s just the mindset that goes into it but but your point PK is that you know you hadn’t heard that and it’s intriguing i I would say the same thunder Pacers game three what do you think who you got how’s this going to go uh originally talked about the Pacers or excuse me the the Thunder in six thought they’d split the first two um I think the you know Indiana if they’ve got a chance to win another one I think it’s tonight because that place is going to be insane um that arena and the sound and the the crazy pride in the small market resembles Utah in some ways so you can imagine um the next time Utah gets to a final how crazy this place is going to be and and that’s how Indiana’s going to be tonight so OKC is gonna have to play through that emotion um part of that emotion is not losing track of the pace of the game um the Indiana team is aptly named Pacers because they want to set that pace they want to get up and down the floor um you know they want to make kind of a chaotic crazy event out of it and Oklahoma City really they can play up tempo but they really want to grind you into small pieces you know by the end of the game i think that’s the fun part about this matchup and I I think you know like I said I think the the Pacers are going to win another one so I think they they win tonight probably and then I think Oklahoma City takes her home now you said they’re named the Pacers aptly because they want to set the P i always thought it was because of the uh the auto racing oh I’ll be darned i didn’t even think you’re like that little uh you’re like that little mechanism that gets the rabbits all or the rabbit that gets all the dogs all stirred up out at the the races i’m sure you spent some time there in Jersey the dog races going to the dog track PK that was always my favorite thing i’m going to take the the Golden Retriever at three slot in Jersey there’s enough horse race tracks including New York and all that you could go and the offtrack bedding which I spent a fair amount of time the dog races were in Phoenix because my parents were going through withdrawals what do we do at night we’ve gone to Turf Paradise doing so they went to the dog races yeah did you ever do you ever go to Highlight did you ever find Highlight no that’s more of a a southeast thing i don’t I don’t think it was in the Northeast well there was one in Newport Rhode Island i saw there was a highlight dome that’s a little far people go in there and bet their their life on this game which is crazy yeah and that the reputation that had was not the best not great yeah in terms of uh uh Louis the Fixer those types of things yeah i was on a I was on a two-year assignment to Newport so I never quite made it into the high lie but I did surface around the outside much like I did in Worcester Massachusetts outside of a Judas Priest concert oh you got another thing coming oh yes you do and we’re always united worooster Massachusetts dj’s just sitting there looking at it like I guarantee his face is disgusting right now actually I was about I was about to tell you back in the day the AGOT page of the San Diego Union the morning paper my parents took had highlight results from Tijuana and I asked my dad about it and he just shook his head and walked away literally no words no words he just shook his head and walked away like oh and he told your gambling and she denied you the privilege and opportunity to ever do that again and read that and they that was another thing that was on the restricted list in the Single household no that wasn’t on the list it was a long list but that wasn’t on it i could read about highlight in the newspaper yeah I heard those that was kind of fishy see it all comes full circle i get you guys back to Phoenix um San Diego and all’s right with the world well what were you eating for breakfast when you read that either raisin bread or Cheerios probably you know in all probability i don’t know this is where took a hard left went back to Sugar Dorf’s house on the right was the Williams they had this big backyard with a huge tree swing the Ketarines had their house in center field in our culdesac and they put a second story over the garage and Mike Fatali homered over the second story we thought that was a tape measure shot we celebrated you live in a culde-sac i lived in a tenement in New York i’ve seen your house you all your poverty stuff about Jersey i don’t want to hear it tenement he showed me a picture of the house it is actually very nice that was an old house we were just squatters okay nice save i guess we’re done i guess that’s a symbol once the highlight talk is over we pretty much wrapped it up hey put that put out that out there for the listeners the best person to give you a description of highlight you know maybe win one of Jake Jake Hatch’s flip-flops py always said “We’re not going to become tennis radio but Highlight Radio hey that’s in play that could happen.” There’s plenty of room out in the West Desert we could throw a dome out there highlight’s no longer played in Tijuana the Highlight building is a uh today used for concerts thanks Tim thank you appreciate it buddy once again all right hey thanks Jim we’ll talk to you see you guys when we come back we’re giving away concert tickets jason Elden the full throttle tour Utah First Credit Union Amphitheater July 26th you can win next tables
SEG Media Utah Jazz analyst Tim LaComb joined DJ & PK for his weekly visit to talk about the franchise and the NBA Finals.
