Full Show: NBA Free Agency Rolls On | Utah Jazz Starting Five Projections | KD & PK’s Moment | De…

Full Show: NBA Free Agency Rolls On | Utah Jazz Starting Five Projections | KD & PK’s Moment | De…

Jake and Ben 975 the KSL Sports Zone. Listen, you just never know what that I never know anyway, Ben, I don’t want to speak for you. I never know what that five minutes of my day that I just had is going to leave on me. You know what I mean? It’s like five intense
like
I I never know what we’re going to discuss. I I never know which direction it’s going to go. I just know I I could be angry afterwards. I could be I could I could be in a good mood afterward. I It’s It’s honestly it might be the most impactful five minutes that I have in my day, which which is dramatic because I spent a large chunk of my morning with a dramatic still dramatic four-year-old. When does three teenager end?
19. When when is moving day? Yeah. But but I don’t know how I feel about that conversation
that we just had.
Yeah. PK was admitting that he’s bitter and I I was I I was like, “Well, yeah, man. I listen to the radio.” I know.
I like needling PK a little bit, but
you never know. PK’s on his way to play golf, so he’s always got like one foot out the door on Tuesdays. He’s got his men’s league.
But we were compelling enough to keep him in the room today,
which I I take as a victory. So, am I in a good mood? David,
that was fun.
David is dressed like it’s snowing outside. Can we talk Can we talk about that controversy in the building?
Yeah.
Can we pull the the curtain back?
And and by the way, this is this is not complaining because I worked in a studio while the Delta Center was being renovated the last time, and that made me grateful for really all situations other than that one. But if you watch our YouTube stream, you may notice that recently we’re always wearing long sleeve shirts or DJ’s got a sweatshirt on.
So I am no HVAC expert and I I don’t know. But our studio is a David just came back shaking his head. Yes. Our studio
It is snowing outside. Is a uh is a crisp 62 degrees.
Yeah.
And that might be its high over the last couple of weeks. Yeah,
it’s it’s just cold in here.
It is. It’s chilly.
Now, here’s the hilarious conundrum, though, is now the arrow.
Hi, Lloyd. Lloyd’s coming in to check on the situation,
which is 15 ft away from us.
Uh, 67. I know. Okay, it’s getting better.
Sweat lodge.
Uh, no, 67 is is perfectly acceptable. Again, I am not complaining other than it has Don’t give you that look. I’m really not cuz I’d rather have it cold than hot. And remember when they were renovating the building and how horrible that was? This is amazing. I’m not complaining about anything. Yeah. Right. Other than to tell the story because it is kind of funny
because it is quite cold in here. Yeah. But the Arrow, the wonderful classic rock station,
15t away from us,
maybe 15 feet, like just kind of around the corner.
Their studios, which are awesome as well,
um are like 90°.
It’s so hot. They had they had the door open and a fan going,
which obviously is really bad for radio.
Uh, and like I just walked by it. I didn’t go in. I just walked by it yesterday. Like, whoa, whoa, that thing is an oven. Yeah, this is a better problem to have. This is a way better problem. We’re on the right side of this. And there are people working on it. Again, I’m not an HVAC expert, so I’m not here to tell anybody what to do. But it is funny because that studio is right there. Scorching, but FM100 is having similar issues. They had their door open. So, the home of Christmas.
Yeah. Be careful. It’s It’s getting hot in there.
Yes.
We can’t do that.
No, we cannot freeze out Christmas.
No.
Jake, you remember when we went to that renovation over there? They would turn the AC. We had those big windows in the arena.
Oh, they turned it off for months. They’re just like that. Oh, you guys need those on? Yeah, we need the AC on. Yeah. Yeah. The greenhouse.
It was It was pretty wild. Uh how how much did that reno cost? Like $200 million. Try having like sitting in your office, which our studios at the time were were probably What’s the square footage on our studios, do you think?
Here.
No, over there.
There. Not big.
A thousand maybe.
Some that that’s kind of what I’m thinking.
Yeah.
So imagine having your own,000 square foot area and then a $200 million renovation going on. guys drilling and legitimately putting pylons in concrete and
around you.
We had to wear hard hats at one point.
Oh, the whole time. Uh PK sold me out for coming in the wrong entrance, so I almost got us all fired. I mean, it was
PK also got in trouble for using a uranol he wasn’t supposed to use. Something like that.
I didn’t know about that one.
Uh so, you know, funny problems. I’m I’m fine with the 62. Yeah, it’s not a big deal.
It’s not a big deal. I wore the long sleeve today. It was a little chilly yesterday, but I I’m good. And nobody cares. Even Ben doesn’t. He’s glued to his computer. Following all the action in the NBA.
Oh, this there’s something going on. Uh in the NBA, where where do you want to start? Free agency day is here. It’s upon us. Well, the big surprise today is what has happened in the East, but that doesn’t it’s not super pertinent locally other than Damen Lillard got bought out, which I think is an extremely gutsy move by the Milwaukee Bucks and has obviously some local relevancy. Uh, but they did that in order to sign Miles Turner, who just made a championship, well, a finals run with the Indiana Pacers. So, that Pacers team is now without Tyresese Hallebertton and will be without Miles Turner going forward. And Miles Turner’s in Milwaukee for two reasons. one in hopes of keeping uh Giannis there
and because they lost Brook Lopez to the Los Angeles Clippers. Am I remembering this correctly? He will go to the Clippers for two years.
Uh Miles Turner at this point is a better player than Brook Lopez. So I like this move for Milwaukee. They also signed Gary Harris and they kept
Torian Prince. Am I right on that? And uh they’ve they’ve they’ve done a good job actually retailing without giving up any future draft picks. He’s a different player though than Brooke, which that may create problems actually because Brooke was a spacer whereas Miles Turner is an eater. Um, he certainly did not make threes in the playoffs.
No, but you still had to pay attention.
Yeah, you do. Yeah.
Uh, you know, and I know even Miles Turner canned some threes in the playoffs.
No, that’s what that’s what I’m talking about. Miles Turner did not shoot well. Oh, I thought you were talking about Brooke and I was like, they were in the playoffs for like 10 minutes. I don’t remember how I shot.
But he shot 39% from three last year. So,
all right. Maybe I’m giving it more credit or I should be giving it more credit. I like it how tough and
on five and a half attempts. That’s a lot.
I like it how tough and big it makes him. And Giannis doesn’t want to be the center. All these centers don’t want to be centers. Anthony Davis doesn’t want to be a center. Giannis doesn’t want to be a center. Yeah.
Uh, you know, Cat didn’t want to be a center.
And so, this allows them to not play Giannis at center,
right? It allows Giannis to have space to do Giannis thing,
which is probably really important to Giannis. Now, how do they replace Old Dame? I don’t know.
Yeah, you just don’t.
Where do you get that? Where do you get that production? You know, or going back to Chris Middleton, you know, where do you get the where do you get the secondary production? You know, the great part about Chris Middleton and why it didn’t work with Dame is he was a very useful player in any number of circumstances, not just scoring.
He was a good shooter, he was a good spacer, he was a good defender, he was tall, he was long, he was really a fine match for Giannis. So, who has that role?
But I would imagine they will find a guard to come in and do some scoring because apparently those guys don’t have any value. Allah Colin Ston who got traded for Ysef Nerkach and Jordan Clarkson getting bought out, which happened shortly after our show yesterday.
And he’s going to the Knicks.
The Knicks to go play at Madison Square Garden, which I can’t wait to hear Mike Breen both be frustrated and scream bang for.
Yeah, he doesn’t like Jordan’s game. He saw Jordan play the one game at Madison Square Garden last year and kind of was as brutal as I’ve heard Mike Breen be on a player.
This can be rough.
Yeah.
Uh although great news for Jordan, Tom Tibido is no longer there, so he’ll actually play probably.
He will get some minutes because he is a bench player at this point, but the starters will not be playing 45 minutes a night.
No, he’ll go back to his role, which became the narrative for him of you’re going to play 20 to 25 minutes a night now. We played more back in the day, but and it’s going to be green light and go get yours against the second unit and then and he can be the fifth best player on the floor most nights instead of when he was with the Jazz, he had to be the third best player on the floor. That’s probably not who he is at this point in the his career, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back in the conversation for six man of the year. At least get some votes.
You know what? This gets back to the whole discussion about when the Jazz were rumored to be interested in uh Jeremiah fears 100%. It’s like you can find a guard somewhere.
Trey Johnson’s the same way. Even guys who are good. Colin Saxon’s good.
He is
not a market for him at all. Right. You can you can find a dude who likes to dribble and
so five six guys even though Colin’s not that tall, but a good guard in the back court doesn’t have a lot of value. So yeah, the Jeremiah Fierce thing.
Now in retrospect, I had this exact same thought driving it. I’m glad you brought it up is that yeah, that’s why you draft the 68 guy. You know, they just have more value and you can find other guys who are pretty good. You could have had Colin Ston and just have him just gotten Nerkach for him,
which is nothing.
Is nothing. That’s a That’s the equivalent of nothing. In fact, it’s maybe worse than nothing because you’re still paying him. You would have rather traded Colin to a team that just had cap space and then you got that cap space. You didn’t even get cap space for Colin and you had to give up an asset to get off of him. So, yeah. Trey Johnson, Jeremiah Fears, now Damen Lillard. And I get it’s because he has a torn Achilles, but they’re willing to give up whatever he can offer next season just for nothing. So, yes, I glad you brought that up. It’s exactly right.
Um, as far as the Jazz go, I got to imagine that there’s more coming.
I think they would still love to trade Jon Collins. Yeah. And I think I will be curious if a secondary market appears for John after the dust settles for this first kind of when the wheels start grinded.
Yeah. And everyone’s like, well, we want to get better and we didn’t get something like actually what I was thinking is, you know, John Collins might make a lot of sense now in Indiana.
He’s not Miles Turner,
but he does some floor spacing. He can provide some rim protection, a little, not a lot, but they might lose uh Obie Tophin as well. and then he steps in and plays kind of both of those roles and he could start next year. You you can play John 35 minutes a night and get play very playable basketball.
He’s the one I really don’t understand because I think we’re right and we you know especially me we’re we’re always right but I think we are right about the uh the guards thing. John I can’t figure out because he’s useful.
Yeah,
anybody was paying half attention last year and I get it. The Jazz didn’t win a ton of games. I’m sure they weren’t high on a lot of radars, but he was great last year.
Agreed.
And I know he had the drug thing early in his career, right? And it’s, you know, we don’t talk about it here really, but and it’s gone away as far as we’re concerned, but people still don’t think he’s like a he he was definitely one of the better locker room guys last year. I don’t want to say best. you throw around that kind of label when I don’t truly know. But his attitude about everything over there and the way he handled a situation that that honestly was delicate is admirable. And again, John’s drug thing was like a supplement, not John’s addicted to something.
No, but he got suspended for 25 games for taking a supplement that’s banned by the NBA.
Sure.
Yeah. But I think some of that still follows him or where maybe teams don’t think, you know, oh, this is an overpaid guy that’s not going to help us and kind of be damaging in the locker room, which absolutely couldn’t be further from the truth because he’s uber productive and an absolute positive influence, I got to imagine, on most any locker room. So, I don’t know. I don’t get why there’s not a market for him. Team should be banging down the Jazz door to get that guy. And I’m not talking about, you know, a big- time asset by any means, but you a team should want John K. There should be a market for that dude.
I think so.
And maybe there is. And they’re just hanging on and like you’re saying, waiting for the wheels. Yeah. He just may not be priority number one. He may be contingency for three or four teams.
The dang Lakers could use that guy.
Yeah, a a lot of teams can.
I I do I have some further thought on my LeBron opinion yesterday, by the way. Okay.
So, we can we can get to that a little later on in the show. I I let things digest a little bit more. And then we had further fallout with the windbag going to the mat uh from uh from ESPN. So, more drama, but we’ve got to we’ve got to reform our opinion as that saga uh lives on.
Yeah.
But for the Jazz, I don’t know. I was thinking about this. The the big topic about the team next year is going to be well, they’re going to be pluckucky and really try but still be really bad.
Yes. And that’s clearly what they’re doing. They are trying to be really bad next year. It I I just can’t get out of my mind how much the Jazz had to try to to only win 17 games. Like how intentional
Yeah,
it was. And I’m not bringing it up to to make people relive it, but there they did some really intentional stuff.
And still it was a they got fined by the league.
Yeah. Those last to 17. No, truly those last 20 games, that post all-star break stretch might be the worst stretch of Jazz basketball I’ve ever experienced.
I don’t know. Maybe maybe it’s me. I don’t This is a wild take, but
this team might get to 30 games.
Like, where’s the line of demarcation? Where’s that that pick or whatever? Because if if the if you’re still trying to balance tank note and keeping this pick that has just dictated all decisions for the last whatever years. Uh I don’t know man like if Ace comes in and plays pretty well if other young players make a step and Lowry is still on the team after all.
Mhm. They could win 30 games. That’s like they had to try so hard. I do
so hard to lose that many games.
I do think they’re they are strategically weak in the most important place which is point guard. They are really inexperienced at point guard and that’s going to lose you a lot of games where Colin Ston and Jordan Clarkson just being manageable and being able to run the show I think does have value. But I am with you. I I will not be surprised if the Jazz are up at you know 25 games and lays together some some three-game win streaks which you did not see last year. So to re-establish what we’re talking about, the Jazz owe the pick, next year’s pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it’s nine or later. So 9 through30, the pick will go to the Oklahoma City Thunder. They have a 99.4% chance of holding on to the pick as long as they finish with the fifth worst record or worse, right? Worse meaning actually a lower, fewer wins. So last year, let’s see if I can do this quickly. The team with the fifth worst record in the NBA finished with change this to league. One, two, three, four, five. Was the Philadelphia 76ers who had 24 wins. They’re winning more than 24 games. If they try,
I think so.
I absolutely if they play Lowry. Yeah. Listen, Will Hardy’s a good coach. He is a good coach. Yeah.
And if you tell him he can coach, they’re gonna they’re they’re gonna Yeah.
And that’s again, that’s just to guarantee that you get it. Um if you were to finish with the six worst record, you would have a 96% chance of holding on to it. You know, I’m just saying 99.6. You’re basically guaranteed.
Yeah. So that might as well might as well be zero. Spurs can have a 0% chance of winning the lottery and find a way to get up there. So yeah, the further you fall back and then if you finish with the seventh worst record, which is where the Bulls were last year and the Bulls won, let’s see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. It was actually the Raptors, but the Bulls jumped them. Um, so the Raptors finished with 30 wins last year. It was the seventh worst record in the NBA. Seventh worst odds, or if you finish with the seventh worst record in the NBA, excuse me, you still have an 87% chance of holding on your pick. So that’s 30 wins. You still have an 87% chance of making the pick, right? And you actually end up with a 30ish% chance of jumping up to the top four.
I bring this up honestly in selfishness and it is something that I particularly dislike about you, but it’s not your fault.
Okay. Every time I actually No, I take it back. I really like this about you because it is kind of snarky in a funny way, but there was a game against Brooklyn. The Jazz won against Brooklyn.
They did in overtime.
And you basically tweeted out like, “Hey, settle down. This chill teams win games.
Teams win games. It happens sometimes and you maniacs are are maniacs.”
Yeah. And every time a team that the Jazz were competing against won some random game would retweet that tweet.
Yeah.
And it made me angry because I’m annoyed by the how could you win?
Yeah.
How could you win?
Yeah.
That bothers me personally. Agreed.
And I don’t want to live that anymore. And what’s still funny about that
and kind of further illustrated the whole insanity of that panic.
What that they still got screwed the shaft if you will.
They still dropped to five.
They finished with the worst record. They had the absolute worst outcome in the lottery and still got the guy who everyone had at number two on their board going into last season, which is why you designed your roster to lose the games they did was to get Ace Bailey.
So there was panic over winning games. There was panic over the lottery. There was panic over the lack of talent that was going to be on the board by the time we’re d the Jazz were drafting. And they still got one of the two or three guys that you designed the whole system to get.
Or as I call it, the shaft.
So all of the panic, and I’m with you, one of my least favorite things is undo panic in the world.
Yeah.
People panic about things that are 10 steps down the line that will inevitably never happen. And I mean, again, my my biggest one is jazz fans were mad at the Jazz front office for signing Miles Bridges, which never happened.
Yeah,
there was someone some random person be like, “The Jazz might be interested in Miles Turner.” And Jazz fans flipped.
Um,
I was like, “They didn’t sign my What are you mad about?” Or Miles Bridges. Did I say Miles Turner? Miles Bridges.
You said Miles Bridges.
I think I did. Miles Bridges.
And people were angry. It’s like you’re Are you mad at something that hasn’t happened and did not happen just like for your own sanity? Save it. Well, well, there’s a couple things that come to mind. It the funny thing about uh what’s his name? The center who got traded from Charlotte Williams, what’s his first name? Got traded from Charlotte to the Lakers
and then failed the physical and went back to Charlotte. You know what the buzz is about that is that Pelinka the Lakers fans flipped out that oh this is what we get blah blah blah and Pelica chickened out and failed the physical cuz he played like the rest of the year
he did and no one ever saw anything else for him. I didn’t think he missed a game. Yeah.
And it it’s amazing the the panic and it seems to be certainly in sports. But uh I I will compare it to and and here’s where I certainly have sympathy for the panickers. I will compare it to my own marriage in a way. I am really dayto-day. I’m a really day-to-day person. That’s how I I live my life. Um, and I think it’s benefited me actually in this media industry because it’s really a day-to-day business because things change really
dramatically in a overnight. You know, I’m talking to you who had a station literally turn off right
right before his show.
Mrs. Patch is a planner and I’m like you, Jake. It’s a dayby-day process for me and she it drives her bonkers. But to your point, it serves us well with the news cycle.
But my wife, now let me tell you how she deals with some things. This is not everything by any means, but it is a funny story. She was in law school one L year, Ben. That’s your That’s your big year, right? Your first year. That’s where you take all the basics and tests are super important and all that. I mean, they’re all all the years are important, but that’s kind of the that’s the hard one everybody gripes about, right? So, she takes a test, she comes out of it and she goes,
I think I failed it.
Going to be out of law school.
Yeah. Going to be drowning in debt.
Yep.
I’m going to be working at Walmart. I mean, it just it went on.
Right.
And I was like,
by the way, shout out to everyone who works at Walmart.
Right. I Yeah. I’m not trying to insult anybody. I’m just saying, you know, I’m going to be, you know, working two jobs just to to get by or whatever. I’m just My point is she went a million miles down the road, right?
Correct. I was like, let’s just hold on.
Let’s see what happened on the test
and see how the test see how the test went. I’m not kidding. First in her class.
Yeah, right.
First in her day in class. I was like, are you She didn’t want to tell me.
Yeah. You can’t even celebrate at that point. you didn’t watch that was like first in your class.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There’s just people out there that see the world differently. So, I I apologize to those people, but I don’t get it.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? To your point about the draft, which I think is is a really great one, that the Jazz still got Ace Bailey. I made this point a long time ago in a different way. Kevin Oconor traded up to get Darren Williams and cost him a a ham sandwich. Like, what are you going to do? How do you play the hand that you’re
deal? That’s the only thing you can do.
What are you going to do? And Austin H made a really savvy move to get Ace Bailey. Really savvy.
Yep.
We’ve talked about it since Friday when you brought it up,
right? That he knew that Charlotte wanted the Duke guy.
Yeah,
of course they do. Right.
If you know anything about the state of North Carolina, you know that the new ownership wants to please the fans. And you you know how you please the fans? You take the Duke guy.
Yeah. Right. Right. So, he knew that was what the Hornets wanted. Now, they could have traded back with Washington and wanted to come get Ace Bailey. And the Jets said, “We’re going to take your guy. We don’t I bet you Austin was like, “I don’t even like your guy. I don’t I don’t know. He’s not my guy. Not at all. I think he should go in the late teens. Actually, he stinks.” But you know what I’m gonna do? I’m taking him.
Yeah.
I am taking him. And uh you’re getting the middle finger. And so, the Hornets had to take their guy. It’s really I mean it’s a really savvy move and the Jazz get what I’m guessing they think is the best player.
Yeah. And honestly I I have doubts about Dylan Harper. I have no idea why he was the guaranteed number two.
Sure.
You know there there’s there’s no guarantees outside of Cooper.
But Ace has a lot of stuff. You know, getting back to our guard wing combo. And I know we’re way over hatched. Sorry. But Ace has a lot lot of stuff. He’s big. He’s long. He’s athletic. And he’s super skilled.
Yeah. And so if he gets even more skilled, the sky’s is the limit.
Yeah. I’m excited for Saturday.
You pay a lot of people a lot of money to make that a reality.
I’m excited for people to see Ace if they’ve only watched his highlights. He’s he’s an interesting player.
Oh, Jazz fans are going to bang down his door at that at that. Yeah, that’s going to be cool. All right, stay tuned. More next. Jacob Ben, uh 975 the KSL Sports Zone. This is This is DJ and PK. joined now by Raphael Barlo, director of scouting for NBA big board. I’m
so excited for college basketball to start around here because the AJ Debons is going to play for BYU this year. A lot was made on tanking. I think we’re going to see it again. What do you think?
I spoke with a college coach that was at the Team USA camp. He said that AJ has taken it up to another level. My question was, do you think he was bored in high school last year? He said absolutely. He said, “AJ should petition the league right now because he would be the best player in this draft if he enter right now.” I’m not a fan of tanking, but it does make sense to tank, especially for a talent like that. If you’re a fan base like Utah, you may not want to do it again because you haven’t had much success with it. But AJ special. [Music] Catch DJ and PK mornings from 6:00 to 10 on 975, the KSL Sports Zone. Jacob975, the KSL Sports Zone. Uh, it’s time for the top three stories of the day. KSLports.com brought to you by Jbrooks Jewelers. Cherish your love with Jbrooks Jewelers. Explore their expertly crafted engagement rings made from the finest materials. J. Brooks Jewelers hatch still in for Christian who is vacationing. I think Christian will be back uh by October. We hope
if he if if he doesn’t catch a deni fever from all the mosquitoes. We’re hoping he’ll be back by then. Probably by Jazz season at the latest. Opening night.
Opening night at the very very latest. Uh but Hatch is here. Where are we starting today? Hatch
number one. Some of you guys already been talking about this morning, but NBA free agency is well underway and it is rolling along.
Uh I’ve actually liked what a couple of teams have done, specifically the Denver Nuggets. I think you’ve done a very good job. And I bet you Michael Malone is looking around like, “What? Why did you wait for me to go before you improved our roster?”
The guy they hired now, and we were talking about him during the break, so you would think I looked up his name, but he came from the old regime, right?
Ben Ten. Ben Tenzer. He followed uh the old GM to Minnesota,
believe so. Yeah.
And then they’re hiring him to to come back. And I think this dude might be pretty savvy. Moving off Michael Porter Jr. was the only way possible to keep it afloat. So maybe I’m giving him too too much credit, but they had to figure out a way to move off him to to provide Nicolic with support. It was just it’s a bad contract. You weren’t getting the production for the contract.
Got to go. And I think Cam Johnson’s a pretty useful player, but not the point. Moving off the contract was the point. Now they can do some things to uh to fix him, which they have, right?
Uh I think Cam Johnson makes like 10 maybe more million less than Michael Porter Jr. which is good. And then they’ve done things on the uh fringes like trading uh Dario Sarich who they signed as like their big free agent signing who literally did nothing last year for Yonas Valentunis who’s a good backup big. It’s just like those types of moves make you better. You know, that allows uh Jokic to not have to do everything at center all the time and he can actually get a legitimate 13 15 minutes of rest a night and Valenudas is not going to lose you the game. So, yeah. No, I think that’s a great move. I think those types of trades are are very intelligent. Um I think it’s uh I wanted to bring up the Miles Turner deal because he’s going to Milwaukee um to replace Brook Lope Lopez who’s going to the Clippers. But you and I actually paid kind of a large amount of attention to the decision that Indiana was going to have to make in the offseason regarding Miles Turner. And their fan base apparently is giving them some blowback of not being willing to go into the luxury tax.
But the injury to Tyrese Hallebertton made this a really easy decision.
I think so too.
This this might might or might not have happened anyway. you know, if if he’s still healthy and they lose the finals, they may run uh Turner back and say, you know what, we’re going to pay the luxury tax while we have a a finals ready team. But that injury changed all of that and this is the smart move for Indiana.
I agree. I applaud teams for pivoting when they have to pivot and it’s why I applaud what Milwaukee has done today, waving uh uh Dame and just paying him $122 million to go away. It’s just it stinks. You you gotta you had a and ironically both guys just had Achilles injuries which is what is causing
it’s a terrible injury.
Yeah. It’s just a bad injury. But you have to pivot. You have to adjust. You can’t just continue to try and knock on the door thinking that you’re going to, you know, someone’s going to open and it’s going to fix it for you. It’s like no, you got to you got to be aggressive. You got to move. And I do applaud the Bucks for doing that. And we’ll see what the Pacers are able to do and if they’re able to, you know, get back to where they were this past season and even last year. But again, the hard part is it’s not just next season that you won’t have Tyrese at all. You just got to come back for a year and probably figure it out. So, it might be three years again until you’re figuring out whether or not Tyrese Hallebertton is really a guy who can get you back to the mountaintop and then you rebuild around him, which they were probably going to be doing at that point. Anyways, so I don’t have a problem with that.
Um, we were kind of laughing at Nico Harrison during the uh during the break and taking credit for blind luck. Uh but they signed D’Angelo Russell
uh to a two-year $13 million deal with the um eyes on keeping it afloat until Kyrie gets back. Yeah.
They are going to be extraordinarily disappointed when they find out how bad D’Angelo Russell really is.
Right. And it’s actually kind of not the player I would want next to Cooper Flack. No,
you know, I just might want pure pure point guard. I get you need to have scoring. You you do. Yeah, that’s
bozo move, Nico.
Um, and then another team I just really like what they’ve done is the Hawks who get former Jazz man. This is kind of surprising to me. To kill Alexander Walker gets traded technically to the Hawks.
Um, it’s funny just because Quinn Snider would not play him at all in Utah and was one of the guys people like, why are you not playing him?
They traded for him.
Yeah, you need a guard who plays defense
and he does that. And I get that he since had a breakout, but like Quinn did not see that there was as much talent there as was clearly available to him.
I think you and I both actually know the reason for that. But I would throw out there his anti- Virginia Tech bias.
Okay. That’s what it comes from.
We didn’t want to play Hokes, man.
Sure.
It’s big flaw with coach Snyder.
Um so that ends up being a pretty interesting team with the Hawks. Now
I cheer for NA, not only because he’s a hokey, but I love his game. But he is another example of Yeah, I can find a guard.
Yeah,
maybe you know what Na brings on the defensive end I think is pretty awesome. You can’t find that everywhere. But you know what I mean? Like Atlanta found a good player. He’s going to help them.
Milwaukee continues to make moves trading Pat Coneton for the silly Meech. Just little things. They’re they’re interesting.
They’re trying to talk Yiannis into staying. Yeah. And look, they don’t have to trade him. You know, he can ask out, but he they that doesn’t mean anything.
Is he a clutch guy? I don’t think he is.
I don’t think he is. I think if you were going to trade Giannis, though, you would have done it already. I mean, you can always do it, but I think you would have made that move already. Maybe the Jazz didn’t trade their guys until when did they trade Donovan Mitchell?
Yeah, Donovan was September 1st. So,
um, and if Milwaukee is trying to talk him into staying, I mean, there’s no guarantee he’s going to change his mind at any moment really. And then what do you do? Because I ask if he’s a clutch guy because what did Anthony Davis do? He slow played it bad. Yeah.
Remember that year?
What did James Harden do? He fatted his way out twice. So what did what would Giannis do? I don’t know. What are you prepared to do, Giannis?
Right.
How bad are you prepared to make it? Uh all right. Well, we’ll continue to follow follow free agency. It’s been interesting but not revolutionary so far. And it was certainly boring at 4:00 when it all started. In the past, there was, you know, 30 deals that would be announced and that’s teams are tampering less or at least announcing that they’re tampering less. That’s probably the truth.
Next. All right. Number two. How do the expectations change for BYU now? Uh, with a a change in quarterback and having to go, you know, barring a transfer, which I’m sure they would love to do. So,
are we gonna,
but Bachm’s the guy, right?
I don’t know. Is it going to be is this going to be the thing where we don’t know until they walk out on the field for the first 100%.
Yeah, of course.
Now, it’s Portland State, so who cares, right? Isn’t that their first game?
That’s their first game. But they will keep that secret until you think they kick off at 6:00. So, yeah. 5:55 p.m.
Not that I There’s not a less Well, other than what just happened, but there is not a less enjoyable storyline for me than mystery quarterback. You’re not going to know until game one. I hate that. Well, that’s that really I mean there’s a lot of examples, but that definitely is kind of a fallout from Cam Rising’s career at Utah. I think
sure everybody’s damaged to that now. But honestly, specifically Kyle Whittingham has been pretty annoying about that for a long time. Uh didn’t when did the news leak, not when did they announce, but when did the news leak that Rzoff was a guy last year?
Hatch that. So last year he went through training camp battling with Gary Bohan. It was a legit it was a legit comp. But about two or 3 weeks into training camp, word started leaking out that Jake had overtaken the job and it was going to be his.
When did we know though that he was going to start? Cuz if memory serves, Colani actually leaked it last year and it wasn’t they didn’t make it official, but it wasn’t so much of a mystery that he was out there. I don’t know.
They tried to play koi with it for quite a while, but I think you’re right.
They did. Um, and I wonder if if Utah changes its tune or Wit does or or if Morgan kind of learns from it that the it’s just not worth it to to me honestly to mess with a fan base like that like they did with Cam Rising. I don’t know what competitive advantage you think you’re getting, but it it’s not worth that, right? And they had him playing pickle ball in front of us. I’m totally with you. Pack 12 media.
I don’t really believe there’s a huge advantage there other than you truly don’t know who it’s going to be and you’re afraid to name it. They rolled him out there and say try not to limp.
I I’m totally with you.
We’re all like he’s played pickle ball. He’s Everybody see me just He just hit a slam in the kitchen. In the kitchen. I like that you know the term.
I don’t think you can go in the kitchen. I think that makes it illegal. You’re supposed to stay out. Yeah, you have to stay out of the kitchen.
But that’s like the only term I know from pickle ball, so I thought I’d break it out. Sound cool.
Well used.
Did you know that pickle ball is quite hip these days?
I did. I did. I exist on our planet. I’m a little bitter about it because it seems like they’re like submarining all the tennis courts in town and making them pickle ball courts and it’s not like I play tennis that much anymore, but I don’t know.
You have a place for it. Um, it won’t matter against who did I say Portland State. It won’t matter against Stanford. Stanford’s terrible uh and should be terrible again this year without Troy Taylor.
Yeah, they probably upgraded in the coaching.
They probably did. Uh, it it will matter against East Carolina.
The Purple Pirates.
Yeah.
In Greenville for some reason. Um, I just, you know, you got to be careful. You don’t want to lose those games. Now, you can lose those games. It doesn’t matter. It’s a non-conference game. Uh, but then you’ll, we’ll know pretty quickly if these guys are ready to go by the time we get to week one of Big 12 football against Colorado.
I’ve got a buddy who went to grad school there and Greenville’s got a very interesting reputation. Do you want to elaborate?
Not really. Okay.
What’s next?
All right. I want to know more about this, but number three, summer league starts Saturday. Saturday, John M. Huntsman Center. Uh, and the exciting thing here is you get to see a really great run of players uh, for the Jazz. Unfortunately, most of it’s in Vegas, but game one on Saturday night, VJ Edgecomb, number three overall pick and Ace Bailey is going to be it’s going to be a draw. Ace Bailey is a huge draw. Uh, I think the and I think the Jazz fans are eager to give him a warm reception.
They are.
So, I I you know, Summer League’s cool regardless, but I bet you get a pretty cool atmosphere, pretty special atmosphere up there at the old Huntsman Center. I would also um I would also set appropriate expectations for him. Oh, well, who knows what you’re looking at in summer league. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Don’t follow the box.
18 and RAW. I just Everyone should recognize like the tools are there. It is not anywhere near a complete package.
I don’t think we have to tell fans that. We We’ve hosted summer league in this town for how long now?
Yeah.
You go down to summer, who knows what you’re going to see. And players that dominate summer league turn out to be bozos like 75% of the time. You just have no idea. Half the well less than half.
Like
what would you say, Ben? A quarter of participants are second or third year guys who’ve already made the roster who are kind of dogging it. Another like 10% are top draft picks who are just working on their game if they’re not do dogging it. And then the rest of it are guys who would knife you in the parking lot just to make the roster and playing like Rudy Dang Rutiger.
Uhuh.
Who knows?
Yeah. Correct. Who knows what you’re looking at? I don’t I think people understand that. We’ve seen enough summer league. I mean, now PK when calling Kevin Durant’s first game did did drop the I’ve seen it all, which is pretty hilarious. Seemed like a bit of over
I’ve seen it all.
Seems like a bit of an overreaction, but Kevin Durant did turn out to be good.
Got to be very good. So quite prophetic there. All right. Uh are we done?
That’s it.
We’ll have more coming up next. It’s Jake and Ben 975 DKSL Sports Zone.
Hey, bro.
You hear us every day with our crazy opinions.
Hey, how you doing?
Well, now it’s time to hear from you.
Hey, great show.
Download the KSL Sports app and fire off your thoughts with the call-in tab on the bottom of your screen.
This show is fantastic. It’s the one that captivates me the most. You can tell PK to stop singing.
Cheap base.
Let Jake and Ben know what you really think of the jazz. Tell Hans and Scotty about your favorite barbecue spot or what color of tie JJ should be wearing on TV. The best entries will be played on the air. Download the KSL Sports app now and hit the call-in button to let your voice be heard.
I think you guys do an incredible job.
This is 975, the KSL Sports Zone. I pulled up Kevin Durant’s uh NBA debut at Salt Lake Community College trying to figure out where this shot came from with PK yelling at him.
Oh, it was slick, dude. Uh, win big every Wednesday on the KSL Sports Zone with Win Ticket Wednesday. This Wednesday, win tickets to see uh the Sandman, Adam Sandler, uh, and the You’re My Best Friend October 26th at the Delta Center. Tickets go on sale Friday, June 27th at noon, or listen to the KSL Sports Zone all day on Wednesday for your chance to win. Uh, you have no idea how many relevant moments actually happened in the Salt Lake Community College gym.
It is. First of all, it’s just a funny throwback. Scott Leaden’s coaching the team. This roster for the Jazz has Morris Almond, Paul Milsap, uh, D Brown, and Carell Faceno going up against
Big Fez.
Yeah. Going up against uh, KD
now. And Seasonics. DJ and PK tell the story. There was a shot. There’s like a second left and that Durant sunk in that game that caused him to exclaim what he exclaimed. Is there a playbyplay of I don’t know if there’s a playbyplay, but that’s this is what we got. Summer league game. Uh which which of course is what makes it funny. Um Google, it’s one of the few times that LeBron has been unable to scrub a video of him getting dunked on from the internet. Uh, Google Britain Johnson dunking on LeBron James.
I think that was in Orlando. It was at the Orlando somewhere.
I thought it was at Slick. Was it LeBron came? I
think it’s Orlando. Is it? Oh, you’re right. I don’t think LeBron did come to slick. But you know what? Even this is mislabeled. This is on NBA.com and it says Kevin Durant dominated in his only Las Vegas game. This was in clearly in That was definitely pre-Lost Vegas. It’s amazing. Las Vegas has really dominated the summer league scene because Yeah, it was you either went to Utah or Orlando. Yeah, Orlando does doesn’t exist either, right?
No, it’s just the Cali Classic is the only other one now, which is played at uh Chase Center at Golden State. All right. Well, we’re going to get a chance to see some uh some big picks on uh Saturday. That’ll be fun.
No, it’s really fun.
It’ll be It’ll be well supported.
Yeah, it’s really cool. I’ve seen it all. That’s fine.
Uh yeah, have you heard a story that Britain had a chance to talk to LeBron about that? And he definitely remembered.
Yeah, I believe LeBron would remember that
because uh Britain was directing a commercial.
Okay.
That LeBron was in.
Okay.
They filmed it in Utah County and Britain did the blocking for like the basketball scene.
Uhhuh. That makes any sense.
And he had a chance to talk to LeBron briefly and said, “Yeah, remember when?”
Remember when I yammed on you?
When I dunked on you pretty good there.
It was a real highlight for me. I don’t know. That’s a great moment. I don’t know if you remember. Yeah, absolutely.
But it is funny that that becomes a career highlight. The time I dunked on LeBron in the summer league.
It’s more It really is a compliment to LeBron, honestly, because it’s like
Yeah, absolutely.
Makes it super memorable. Yeah.
But yeah, I bet LeBron was like, “Yeah, dude. I remember.”
Oh, the redheaded guy that dunked on me in summer league. Yeah, I remember that. Again, this video was like I look at all these guys and I’m sure one of the highlights of their life is like, “Yeah, I played against Kevin Durant in his pro debut in Salt Lake City. I never made the NBA. This was as close as I got, but I was on the floor with Katie.
And let me tell you, this wing nut was just screaming like it was the NBA finals. You would not believe it all. That’s a cool story for for PK.
Oh yeah, right. I was calling his first game and it PK knew what he was dealing with obviously.
Boy, young bowler and Booner, man. Saw Ron the other day. He still looks great. Boer still looks like he’s 25. And I’m not even kidding. That guy doesn’t age at all.
I’ve known him now for go 15 years.
He hasn’t aged since the day I met him.
And you’ve known him since the very first time you ever turned on the TV watching Jazz basketball in your life. So,
and he looks the same.
Yep, he does.
All right. Love Ron.
We’ll have more coming up next. I I’ve got to I’ve got to massage my LeBron take from yesterday a little bit.
We got We’ll get to that coming up. We’ll continue to follow what’s going on. What’s the latest? And we’ll alert you immediately when the Jazz sign Damen Lillard.
If it happens,
you’ll hear it here first. Uh stay tuned. We’ll have more next. 975 the KSL Sports Zone. Jacob Ben. Uh 975KSL Sports Zone. Uh nominate the esports volunteer you know for the Hercules Hero of the Week. Submit your nomination at kslports.com/contest and listen every Thursday afternoon to JJ and Alex for the winner. Help us celebrate the efforts of those volunteers making an impact with the Hercules Hero of the Week sponsored by Hercules First Federal Credit Union and Behive Meals. We were talking about the WNBA during the break. Fever star Sophie Cunningham, teammate of Caitlyn Clark, has also been uh seen on camera now saying, “I don’t know how excited people are to be going to Detroit or Cleveland where they’ve gotten expansion teams.” You need expansion. Those expansion fees are going to help keep everyone alive and give everyone money. I don’t care what city you grow into.
Now, she is the one that allegedly was um connected to Who was it? Was it Ishbia? Who? Who was it? Was it Ishbia himself with the sons?
Uh no, no, no, no.
Or was it like the president?
No, it was uh
it was the president.
Yeah.
Yeah. Anyway, that’s what I know about her,
of course, because I follow those sorts of uh salacious stories.
Yeah.
No, the honestly, if I were to give uh these ad uh gals advice as far as the players go, it would be like, listen, you’re you’re the NBA
in 1980. Yeah.
You know, you had to do what it took to build things, you know, and the league has found a star whether you like it or not. So, what do you do to forward it?
Yeah. You know, you got to expand. You got to go to these markets. And you know what? You got to get butts in the seats still. We’re not making a zillion dollars.
Sometimes New Orleans has to go to Utah. You know, that’s just part of it. You got to go find places you can play and hopefully thrive and it’s good for everybody.
Yeah. And you’ve got to create the story. You’ve got to create and you know, no offense to uh the Cheryl Swoopses of the world, but they’ve never had a star like Kaitlyn Caitlyn Clark, whether they like it or not. And those players were great, but she has captured the eye of the zeitgeist.
And you need lore to create some of these, which is you had the lore of her going back to college, exceeding expectations. I think it was her junior year at Iowa. I don’t think she played all four years.
And then going into the league and being good, you know,
she did play all four years. Did she? I thought she only played three, but regardless,
no, she’s not the all-time leading scorer in NCAA history because she skipped a year. So, no, she played all four.
Yeah. Um, yeah. Anyway, we don’t need to to debate the WNBA, but they should absolutely get on board with all of this energy. Yeah. And figure out a way to maximize it and ride that wave because it’s good for everybody. And if that’s expansion or if that’s not gouging Caitlyn Clark’s eyes out with their long nails.
Forgot she averaged 31 points a game her last year at Iowa.
Yeah, she passed the pistol, dude.
Yeah. 31, nine, and seven. Yeah, you need that. You need that lore. Don’t fight against that.
I still think she should have sued to stay in college, but that’s
Yeah, neither here nor there.
That’s uh Yeah, neither here nor there. All right. Can I amend my Lakers take a little bit from yesterday?
Yeah,
cuz I was I was thinking that LeBron was twisting arms to get out of LA. That’s kind of where my mind went with the cryptic um comment that confused everybody from Adele’s fiance, Rich Paul. I think they were I I think that LeBron and his camps don’t know that they’ve lost. Okay.
That he doesn’t want to leave the Lakers. The Lakers, you know, the the Hollywood the whole thing. He has no interest in in leaving the Lakers. He just doesn’t understand that he’s lost the struggle for the franchise because what he wants them to do is a whole bunch of short-term stuff to make them a championship contender next year. And the Lakers aren’t interested in doing that. If you read the rumors, they’re trying to line it up so they have a bunch of cap space in 2027, which is probably the soonest time they could have cap space, but coincidentally does run up with
possibly Nicola Joic’s free agency if you want to look way down the road. Yeah. But the Lakers aren’t interested in making any more LeBron moves to get average players that might help you be better in the short term, maybe. And cashing in on the franchise’s future. They’re basically saying they’re done doing that. And LeBron is saying, “I’m opting in and I’m going to twist your arm to do what I want.” And then if it doesn’t if they don’t give in, he has the out where he can say, “All right, well, I want to be traded.”
Yeah. And that’s why I think Wendy went so heavy on the well the Lakers could trade LeBron like all this sort of thing. And then LeBron’s camp that day, dialed it back in and said, “Oh, no, that’s not you know,
but why would he bag on the team so bad?” You know, why would he say, “Oh, the Lakers are so crappy. They’re building for the future or whatever.”
Yeah.
But I think it’s because he doesn’t know he’s lost.
I think that’s fair. I think there is a little bit of the old obtuse been around and not realizing that the winds have changed. I think that’s probably right. And that does happen. You see that happen in every industry across the world and it certainly can happen with teams. It happens with players. It happens with leagues in general. Guys not realizing that this is no longer your league.
No. LeBron doesn’t know that Jeanie stabbed him in the back and then sold the team, which is exactly what she did. She made the Luca Donic trade, right? She put LeBron in the back seat and then she sold the team.
It was probably a smart move, right? I mean, what do we think? The Lakers value increased by at least a billion dollars by having Luca, if not more.
Absolutely.
Like maybe two.
No, it was I mean, anytime you cash out for $10 billion, are you really making a bad move,
right?
But that you added even more value by having the next space of the franchise already there.
Absolutely. So, she did that without LeBron’s camp knowing it and then she sold it and everything’s different now. And Jeannie can pretend to be in charge, but ultimat ultimately she’s not. She has
she has now a uh somebody that she has to answer to. And I would guess her future in LA is not going to be a long one. I would guess that Rob Pelinka’s future in LA is not going to be a long one unless he jumps on board with the Luca train. But the LeBron train, LeBron has lost his battle for the Lakers and he just doesn’t know it.
I think that’s true. He’s still a very good player. He’s no longer their best player. And rightfully so, they should be making moves with Luca in mind and no longer LeBron in mind.
And that roster is not good enough. It’s not good enough with no resources to all of a sudden become a title contender.
Correct. And that is the lasting uh fallout of how they have tried to build around LeBron over and over and over and that’s what happened to Cleveland. It’s overspend etc. wherever he’s really dictated, they make all these reactionary moves,
right,
that are arguably good in the short term, but then they move off their assets. I can I go look up the trade deadline LeBron’s last year in Cleveland the first time. I’m trying to remember, they made a they traded for maybe an old Antoine Jameson if memory serves. They make all these kneejerky, you know, because they’re trying to keep LeBron happy or whatever. It’s his thing, but he doesn’t have that leverage anymore. He’s not They they moved on from LeBron the day they traded for Luca.
I think that’s right. Regardless of the contract,
and LeBron is still good enough to help you win on the court, but they’re not good enough to win a title as is right now.
Why would why would they alter their plan based on LeBron,
right? And the hard part is you kind of can’t say that out loud because LeBron is still LeBron and he’s still one of the greatest players of all time and he still has a ton of cache. But internally, you recognize the tide has has, you know, has changed. So long and short of it, what what Rich Paul did yesterday was a threat. So it comes back to arm twisting. That was a threat. will leave or will request a trade or will make your life difficult if you don’t do this. And I think this is some short-term move that LeBron approves of. Remember, it was LeBron who wanted Rusty Westbrook.
Yeah.
Great move. Killed it.
Yeah.
Traded for Rusty on his bad contract, by the way.
The worst part, the worst Rusty.
Not free agent Rusty, but
still on the supermax rusty.
Like, so I I’ll be curious to see what the Lakers do. and how they respond. But I think what Rich Paul did was a threat. I think he was threatening the Lakers.
Yeah, I I think you’re probably right, which is again, I had a hard time deciphering exactly what was coming out of that conversation because sometimes it almost felt like m and maybe this was me bringing my own context to it. We all recognize the Lakers can’t win like this. They can’t win a title like this. They can win games, but they can’t win a title like this. So, you’re kind of spinning your wheels with LeBron in his last year. And was that just LeBron acknowledging that? And I think you’re right. LeBron doesn’t realize that that’s the case. No.
Or he knows that they can’t win as currently composed, but he thinks there’s something they can do to get there. And I disagree. I don’t think there’s a way they can get to winning a title this year.
I don’t really know what that pathway would look like. Not signing Jake Laravia, which has been their big move so far in free agency. That’s not going to change anything.
No. So, what I mean, what else is there to to do to appease LeBron? I mean, trade for Giannis.
Also, kind of interesting that they’re not seeing people choose the Lakers.
Oh, well, that brings us to the the update of the story today with the Lakers. Did you see why Dorian Finny Smith left LA or at least reportedly? Uh, but he’s signing with Houston. What’s the report?
Uh, that he was, uh, bent because Rob Pelinka was submarining his value by, uh, telling everybody how bad his knee was. So Dorian Finny Smith felt like he the Lakers were undermining him to get him on a cheap contract and so he left regardless.
Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think play I I’ve said it a million times. I hate to beat a dead horse. I think it’s easy to win with LeBron. I think it’s hard to play with LeBron. And I’m talking about players. You’re going to win because LeBron is good enough and now you’re with Luca. And the exact same thing might apply to Luca.
You’re going to win. I don’t know if it’s necessarily fun to play next to those guys. It’s not. But LeBron’s not good enough anymore.
No. And he’s not. And he’s not he’s he doesn’t know that yet.
So I wonder if some of these guys who are signing free agent deals, you know, they were rumored to be chasing after Brook Lopez, etc. I mean, they just desperately need a center. Clint Capella, even as like a fallback. They didn’t get Clint Capella, he’s going back to the Rockets. Brook Lopez is going to the uh Los Angeles Clippers. Miles Turner was kind of the other target. He’s going to the Bucks. And some of this is because the Lakers don’t have enough money to spend. I think they only had the mid-level exception. players are not saying, “Yeah, that’s my opportunity. I’ll take $15 million to go play next to LeBron and Luca and win.” No one’s saying that. And I think it’s because there’s some instability here.
I bet LeBron is more tolerable to play with than uh than Luca because LeBron is a gifted passer.
He is. Luca. So is Luca, but Luca’s got the whole dribble out the clock thing that hasn’t always been LeBron’s.
And LeBron does love to throw you under the bus, though. Oh,
LeBron’s not afraid to like wave you off as he goes into a timeout.
Oh, LeBron is throw you under the bus guy. No, that’s that’s the storyline around his entire career. Why Why doesn’t LeBron have more titles? What did you see? Some of those teams that he was on, man, they were terrible.
And it’s it’s always their fault. You know what I mean?
We’ve got to see how they spend money this off seasonason um after this year because, you know, LeBron James $52 million conceivably will come off the books. Ruy Hachimura is expiring. They don’t have Dorian Finny Smith anymore. Gabe Vincent, Maxi Clever also expiring. They could have a bunch of money, but that doesn’t factor in what Luca’s extension is going to look like because he’s going to get a huge deal in the next couple of weeks, I would imagine. And they’re going to have to extend some of these guys. I unless they just go into the 2026 off seasonason, which is next year, with no money on the books, and try and totally retool, which I don’t know if the free agency is going to be there. And then that gets interesting for the Jazz again because the Jazz owned their pick in 2027.
But I think the Lakers are still a circus. And I wonder if new ownership when they put an end to the I mean what a slimeball move to basically leak somebody’s injury or a certain perception of somebody’s injury so they can’t get money.
Yeah.
I mean that is a juxtapose that with what the Jazz did with Jordan Clarkson yesterday. Yes. where they I mean I’m not going to say they did Jordan a favor, but you know they did a favor to an agreement and he can go to a different paid him every dollar.
Yeah.
And they say you go pick your team. We can’t find a trade for you and you know the one trade we have is to send you to and I’m just this is purely hypothetical. It’s like you know yeah the Hornets or whatever some other terrible team the Wizards we can send you there. It’s like we don’t want to do that to you. It doesn’t give us any value back. Just go and do your own thing. You pick your spot. That’s a much better landing spot for Jordan. enjoyed the time.
Yeah. Go play for the Knicks. And the situations aren’t necessarily comparable because the Lakers are trying to keep a a player. Um but to be like that to not I mean like that to uh not have a player to truly not have a player’s best interest at heart for your own interests is I’ not I don’t think that’s a good sign as a franchise. the Jazz. I mean, even going back to Larry Miller letting Derrick Fischer out of his contract have always really aired on the side of we want to treat players well. And I’m sure that not every situation was perfect, and there’s probably some stories out there, but it always seemed to me that they did their best to do right by their player. Even when Carl Malone left for the Lakers, they want the Jazz had a $25 million contract on the table for him. Carl took significantly less. to go to the Lakers. I mean, they wanted to take care of their guy. They they air on that side. I would be shocked if we ever heard a story about Dennis Lindseay or Scott Leaden or um Kevin O’Connor or even of course current um Jazz front office doing something like that.
Yeah, that’s terrible. Yeah, that’s about as dirty as it gets. That’s really dirty pool. So, I don’t know what the Lakers are going to do, but I I do think LeBron is trying to flex the Lakers into trying to win next year and moving off their future assets, which would be a tremendous mistake.
And you’re probably right, may not realize that no one’s listening.
I I think that’s the case. I really do. I’ve thought we’ve talked a lot about Rich Paul, Adele as you like to call him, uh, in this on this show and my theory has kind of been when LeBron goes, I wonder if Rich Paul really falls apart because that’s his leverage point that LeBron kind of runs the league. LeBron’s the most important names, the most famous name.
He’s not the most famous name even in LA right now. I mean, he still might have more, you know, name value than Luca, but I’m with you. I don’t think the Lakers are making moves to support LeBron. They’re thinking about their future with Luca.
LeBron’s not the star anymore.
So, if they’re already kind of not submarining LeBron, but just kind of placating him, what’s that going to do for Rich Paul going forward?
Because again, you you talked about the video of Rich Paul talking about common Malawash getting to the Suns. It’s like, well, he’s already at eight and I don’t know if the Raptors are going to draft him. Well, he’s at seven and I’m going to if Brooklyn doesn’t draft him, we think he’ll be there at 10 and that’s our number one spot. Unless Brooklyn takes him first. Unless something else better happens, then we really like you.
Well, that’s why he’s trying desperately to lock down Wimpy, but that’s a theory of mine. That’s not a fact.
Yeah.
But, um, yeah, I think I think I think Clutch will become less of a thing. I was, uh, I had this thought the other day. I hope that Wendy, when he eventually gets fired from ESPN because he doesn’t have any sources anymore, will write a tell all book. I would love to. I would read that book. Like I want to know the story about you remember the petty thing with Wendy and LeBron last year where he goes he’s not my friend. Uhhuh.
Where Wendy had the audacity to say like LeBron and I are kind of friend. We kind of have a relation. I’ve known him for a long time. He didn’t even like say they’re friends. I think he said he’s known him for a long time. Yeah. And LeBron’s like he’s not my friend.
I want to know the backstory to that.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? the the writer on the kind of outside of the inner circle whose job it is to be the mouthpiece. I want to read that guy’s tell all book.
But you’ve seen, spoiler alert, you’ve seen Training Day.
Uhhuh. Right. Like Clutch is Denzel at the end of Training Day where he goes back out and Rich Paul’s like, “Well, LeBron’s gone, but now I’m back with my people. I’m back with some guy.” Like I’m back in the rest of the NBA and every GM turns on him.
Yeah.
You lost your thing. We were here for LeBron. We were listening to LeBron. You don’t have any power anymore. I wonder you look at his client list and it’s mostly has been or fading stars.
Anthony Davis, James Harden, uh Draymond Green, it’s mostly guys of LeBron’s era who are on their way out. He’s got a stake in the NBA. Like he still has young guys, but yeah, it’s like Walter Clayton who plays for the Jazz now. It’s like I I’m with you. It’s Colin Ston. It’s like not needle movers. No, he couldn’t place Colin Ston into an advantageous situation.
That’s like a That’s a pretty significant sign. putting a lot of eggs in the de’ar and Fox basket. We’ll see. I don’t know. But I don’t think LeBron knows he’s lost because I think what they did with LeBron when they made the trade for Luca was plan his retirement. It was like uh you know, we’ve seen people who announced their retirement a year before they retire and then that year is spent transitioning to the next thing and planning for the future. I think the Lakers retired LeBron at the trade deadline and he doesn’t know it.
He doesn’t realize it.
He’s Milton from office space where they’re like, “We just need you to move your desk.”
Yeah. Right. They they put they they highlighted on the calendar LeBron’s last payday.
Yeah.
Like, all right. But LeBron doesn’t realize that.
Yeah.
Or it thinks he’s good enough to carry a team to the championship. I guess still because that team ain’t going nowhere. Not winning a title.
No. Uh, all right. We’ll have more of Jake and Ben coming up next. I love NBA free agents. It It’s less splashy now than it used to be, but love the movement. Love seeing what franchises are are doing out there. I want to ask you to make a prediction of what you think the Jazz starting lineup’s going to look like
game one this season.
Mo Almond.
They’re going to bring him back. Bring
Mo back.
They’re going to bring Mo back. Is Mo still playing?
Oh, there’s no way Mo’s still playing
again. I was just watching the uh
That’s why I came up. Ben was watching.
Was that 07?
Watching 07 summer league.
They could probably find Mo. I bet he can still shoot it.
He couldn’t shoot it when he was here. What do you mean still shoot it?
Oh, that was the only thing he could do. It was
And then it didn’t go in in the NBA and all of a sudden he could.
Yeah, he was a summer league legend though. He
He was G- League.
G-League legend.
Yeah, D-League at the time. Averaged like 30 points a game.
Um, all right. Stay tuned. We’ll have more NBA coming up for you next. 975 VKSL Sports Zone. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present
This is JJ and Alex.
Watching an unlikely champion like the Florida Panthers. They sucked forever. One of the most irrelevant pro sports franchises of the last two decades until 2022. They’re the eight seed. They end up running making a run to the Stanley Cup final. Ever since then, they’ve dominated this league. It takes time. The Panthers had to be patient. They got the right guy to lead it. It all came together for them. So now we’re dreaming of a Stanley Cup here because we have an NHL team. You watch the Florida Panthers do it. The Stanley Cup going places that no one ever thought it would be. Why not here? Why not in Utah? You’re thinking about, okay, what could the Utah Mammoth do to make this happen? And now it’s a reality. Like, this is something the Mammoth can go do. And I think that Ryan Smith is going to be highly motivated to provide the resources to do it. And I think you got a general manager who could build a Stanley Cup championship team. The parts are in place here to be able to do something like this.
Catch JJ and Alex afternoons from 3 to 6, presented by G2G Bars on 975. The KSL Sports Zone,
Jacob 975, the KSL Sports Zone. Join Hansen, Scotty G, coming up tomorrow from noon to 3 and JJ and Alex from 3 to 6 at Kenny Jay’s Barbecue at the District in South Jordan. Order halfpound burgers in time for your Fourth of July barbecue pre-smoked by Kenny himself. Go uh hang out with both shows. Go hang out with the guys uh down there at Kenny Jay’s. Uh, what do you what what’s a Jazz starting lineup going to look like in 2025 26? I don’t think Walker’s getting traded if that makes it easier.
Uh, I don’t I don’t think so either. He’ll start obviously.
I think Lowry’s going to be here.
Lowry will be probably the eighth man. He’s going to be he’s going to be down down the roster a little bit.
So Lowry starts
uh in theory for probably 30 games or so. Yeah. If they could build him back up and trade him, they certainly would.
Um I would think
so. Then it gets I think Ace Bailey starts day one.
I’ll be really curious about that. If he’s as he’s look, he’s a much better player than than Cody was coming out of college, right? He’s more prolific. He still has some rawness that will hurt him.
Oh, sure. But
I actually think Cody’s biggest issue remains his unwillingness to put the pedal to the metal. And that is No one’s ever uh described Ace Bailey as being timid. I think that’s one of Cody’s biggest issues. It’s like a lack of belief in Cody and Ace is in a much better physical position.
I think if Cody Williams is going to m maximize his potential, it’s going to be really hard. His journey is going to be really hard. I was reading about his diet yesterday, his diet, staying on a diet like that, how many calories he he talked about how many calories he eats. Cody,
uh, having you and I both knew a guy that had to keep on weight and the discipline it takes in your diet alone to do that sort of thing, that’s really hard. Yeah, that’s a really hard thing. Let alone, you know, develop his skill. I think his shot needs uh a couple of things adjusted on it. Like fixing a shot that you’ve been doing since a teenager is really hard. And so I I bet the Jazz don’t hate it if they brought him off the bench from the sense of let’s light light a fire under this guy. He’s going to be he’s going to need to be uber motivated to really make it in the league. So let’s light a fire under this dude. And a rookie coming in and starting in front of you probably do that. I think you got to worry a little bit about entitlement with Ace Bailey maybe. But I mean, the Jazz haven’t had this high of a prospect come in as a rookie since Andis probably maybe, Dante.
And he’s got bigger value than those guys. He’s got bigger.
He’s got bigger than both those guys.
And he’s got bigger name value. Ace is like a legit, you know, everybody’s known about him for
Yeah. There’s no mystery. Dante was the mystery as was as was Enis, right? Because he didn’t play.
Neither of those guys played in college, right?
So there was kind of the mystery around them which them
Yeah. Because Darren was coming off a NCAA final four.
Yeah.
Run with Illinois.
Think Illinois lost one game all year
and the Jazz had picked him ahead of Chris Paul who was the guard or whatever. So maybe since Darren and hey Jerry brought Darren off the bench for half a season even though he didn’t have
anybody good at that position at the time.
J’s got to go find their own Milt Palasio to stand in front of uh stand in front of Ace Bailey.
I don’t think that’s going to be the case here.
No, I don’t think so. I mean he’s going to play. So I I would guess he will uh he will start.
I would think so too.
Then the guard line’s interesting. Um you continue to start Collier. I don’t think all of a sudden they put Keonte George in there. And then I thought Sensah was really good last year.
I think so too.
Sens probably deserves an opportunity at a at a bigger role.
Yeah. I guess what where will be interesting is where they want to play Ace if he does start. Is he a three or is he a two?
That could be their their goal.
I think he could play either one. He can probably play either. I mean, that’s that’s part of the reason you draft a guy like that is his versatility because I think there’s a chance it’s like Walker, Kyle Filipki at the four. I I think Taylor’s going to take a while. I I don’t think we’re going to see Taylor. I agree with that.
I don’t think Taylor Hendricks is like in the conversation to start. Maybe I’m totally wrong, but that would be a really quick like back to ready to be on the court. I think it’s going to take a while. I think he’s going to be a part of a second unit.
Well, his injury was a lot like Gordon Haywards in Boston. Like
let that dude take his time
as much as he needs.
Yeah. Slow ramp up.
Absolutely. Slow ramp up because I don’t think he’s going to be the same physically for a while, honestly. Even after he’s available,
right? And you know what? No, I won’t even say that. Um I was just going to say you can sign him after next season to an extension. Just like slow play it just fine.
Oh, he’s still a really young guy. That’s how you can put it. I mean, he’s not
Maybe there would be some more urgency if he were 28, but that’s not
there’s not. Yeah. So yeah, I could see Walker Flip Lowry ace at the two and a you’re kind of interesting because you’re just huge there, right? You’ve got four guys who are 6’8 or taller, your smallest guy and then you can do whatever you want in the back court because conceptually flip Lowry ace can all shoot and if you whatever point guard, you know, you could probably still get away with Isaiah Collier. Sounds like I’ve told you Ke’s had a great off seasonason and maybe Walt Clayton’s ready to play. He’s 22. He’s older than both Isaiah Collier and Keonte George.
Have you seen Flip yet?
Uh he was not at the press conference.
I’m curious to see what he looks like.
Yeah,
cuz I still don’t know what position that guy plays.
I think he’s a four. He’s a liability.
He is.
He’s a backup four then at best.
But he can’t block shots, so he can’t play five, right? He can’t do any of the five stuff defensively.
But I mean, is he going to play big or play small? Because the clinic could play big. He did. He played big.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so what, you know, what is his role exactly? Cuz
I don’t know. Can you really have a pigeon that bad defensively defending, you know, dominant wings?
Yeah.
What’s he going to do when Kai Leonard’s in front of him?
Yeah. Nothing. Yeah. Let him go.
Give up a dunk.
Yeah. And eventually Taylor Hendris gets back and is healthy enough to play and takes that spot,
you would think. But so that’s what I want to know about Flip because that’s that’s still his key to staying in the is what position is he and can he guard whatever position they put him in. Yeah.
But he did have a promising rookie season.
Great. I forgot he had a 30 and 18 game last year. He had some he had some good moments.
Um so yeah, I’ll be curious what Ace does defensively. I mean what how many positions can he guard?
Yeah.
Is he
He will tell you five.
Yeah, sure. But to say that is one thing.
What he can actually do is different. Yeah, that’s one of those uh that’s uh you know who that is? That’s uh Travis Hunter saying, “Oh yeah, I’ll play both ways in the NFL.” Like, “Yeah, let’s see how it goes first. Let’s pick one and start there.” Because the NFL is a different animal. These players are different athletes.
And it’ll be interesting to see what the Jazz do with their second unit. And I think they alluded to it a little bit yesterday by waving Johnny Juing and keeping Sv Muk who’s going to be on the roster next year, assuming he doesn’t get traded in the next little bit. But VHT, as you like to call him, will be back with the Jazz next season. Someone’s got to shoot, man.
He does bring a veteran presence who likes to shoot. And the Jazz second unit probably is going to need guys who are willing to shoot.
I I thought that they picked that up because they thought that they could trade him.
But yeah, probably more likely than being able to trade Johnny Juang at the trade deadline this year. No, I think that’s one of those things where we will see him moved
before then. By mid-season.
Yeah, by the trade deadline. Yes, by mid. kind of like cousin Drew last year.
I would think so. He also advantages if he doesn’t play, he doesn’t play. He didn’t play last year and he seemed to be a good soldier about it.
But managed to have the highest shot per minute rate on the team by far. I don’t even know that officially, but that’s got to be true. And have to remember he has the same agent as Larry Markinham.
Got to be nice to that guy.
Got to be nice to that guy. So, um I thought that was probably part of it. and the Jazz didn’t want to continue to have to develop another player in uh in Johnny Juen coming off the bench. So, I think the Jazz are going to find a couple of veterans. I’ll be I’ll be curious how they approach this. I think they’re going to go cheap. I think they’re going to just get some veteran minimum guys to fill out the back end of the roster because I I think the other issue and maybe why I would consider starting Kee George. And again, it’s just depend on how well he’s playing is I think he’s actually a little bit hurt as well as I thought he adjusted to being the six-man. If you’re the sixman and you’re playing with Taylor Hendricks who’s coming back from an injury and Cody Williams who looks afraid to be on the court at times and whoever you’re you uh Yousef Nerkich it’s like that’s a huge offensive load he has to carry as a scorer and I think that actually hurts his efficiency. I would like to see for his development him has to do a little bit less. I think he’s got too much on his plate. My question for you is what player are the Jazz going to cut? Because I think they’ve got to cut one of these guys really to send the message to the others that like we’re serious now.
Well, they did with Johnny and they did with Jordan.
Yeah. No, I mean like somebody it’s like uh like real cut off your nose despite your face kind of move, you know? Like like we’re invested in you. This is not in the best interest of the franchise and we’re cutting you anyway. You’re gone. Well, that would be Cody. Like would Zion Williamson would Zion Williamson have a better work ethic if they cut Brandon Ingram? You know, like back in the day. I don’t believe so.
No.
No. You know, when Dwight Howard had a bad work ethic, should Orlando just have cut one of their better players.
Yeah. You’re gone, Hedo.
Dwight’s like, “He’s really good. That makes us worse today.” And you say, “We don’t care. We’ll do the same to you.” Kidding. Um, I wonder if a byproduct of keeping Colin Ston a little longer was they wanted some of that to be carried on by these other players. Jordan Clarkson too you could throw into that category. I suppose
what part of it
you know like I always wondered kind of what was the benefit of not making these cut and run moves at the trade deadline or last off season because it became quite obvious that you weren’t going to get a first round pick for
Jordan Clarkson or Colin Ston. So why not just
the bullet? Yeah. And what we kept hearing over there about Colin specifically was he could be part of the future because
yeah,
they like his work ethic and what he brings to the table and the Tony’s and but but all the you know the stuff we heard about Colin like he truly was a gym guy. I mean and he was working hard all the time and he played hard all the time and he wanted to compete at all times and they liked that and they wanted that to be a part of their young players. I wonder uh if if that can live on, you know, talking about a culture. I mean, you’re you’re you’re still continuing this rebuild. I think they have their coach. I’m sure their coach wants to put good habits into these players. So, that challenge lives on. I wonder if some of Colin and and maybe to a lesser extent Jordan. Uh they want some of that to continue through Keonte George if or Walker Kustler or whoever. I do wonder if we should describe and maybe it’s just the landscape has changed in the NBA so you have to address things differently but I do wonder if Austin H and the moves the Jazz have made since he been hired is a bit of a rebuke of how the Jazz have handled their roster over the last two years where they have tried to value return on investment for their assets that they have like John Collins like Colin Saxton like Jordan Clarkson
like you know Mike Connley
or even Lowry
or even Lowry Kelly Oolen these guys they’ve held on to longer than they they needed to before trading them to try and maximize their value. I wonder if Austin’s very aggressive approach which is just straight trading uh Colin Ston for negative value and cutting Jordan Clarkson getting rid of his contract is a bit of him saying we’re do we’ve been doing this wrong for two years. This is not the best way to build this team and we’re not going to make that mistake anymore.
I mean that might be the dramatic way to look at it. Um, you know, nothing like Austin giving a middle finger to the old man. I mean, I I love a story like that.
Take that, Dad.
Uh, I would guess it’s a little more convenient, meaning new guy in town. So, I’m going to come in, you know, talk to Kevin Graham about pretty much every job. Kevin, you know, longtime program director. He was a host here for a long time. Uh, he’s bounced around the country, done a bunch of jobs. Um, when you get a new job, that’s when you make the changes. It’s convenient. You’re the new voice. You do those different things because they were probably coming anyway and you might as well get them out of the way now,
right?
Danny had to do a huge breakdown of an entire roster.
Danny did it even more aggressive than what Austin has done,
right? And that sort of thing just takes time. And then you do have to worry about who is actually on the team and who is uh doing things like talking to your young players and how is that going and you have to consider all those things. I would guess that Austin coming in and being the new guy in town, it’s convenient to do these things. This is I mean, they’re not going in any different direction than Danny A had the team going other than
he’s just moving off veteran assets, which Danny, I guess, was going to do anyway.
I I suspect yes, Justin and Danny would have done the same thing had they not replaced or had they not brought in Austin H.
Yeah. So, it might be just easy to do it now.
It’s easy to do it now. What relationship does Austin A have with any of these guys? Probably none. And I do think they did damage to Cody Williams by giving him a bigger role than he was ready for last year. They probably there was some fears about that, I’m sure.
Yeah.
Somebody’s got to play Somebody’s got to play the minutes. And if those guys don’t have any value, they might as well play for our team. Why not?
Yeah.
So, I don’t know. If you want to put it as a rebuke on the Jazz strategy, I guess you could look at it that way. I don’t know if that’s the case.
It might not. No, it might not be. It might just be the landscape has changed and the Jazz ran out of time to try and maximize those value assets where expiring contracts don’t have much value anymore.
Now, do I hope that the Thanksgiving is as awkward as possible? Yeah, obviously I
I don’t get that. That’s the impression.
Do I hope that Austin is currently not talking to his dad because they had some throwdown about whether or not to buy out Jordan Clarkson? Yeah, I do.
But you don’t think that’s what’s happening? I doubt it.
Yeah, same. I doubt it. But I hope maybe they’ll have it men by Christmas. You know, maybe New Year’s will be a sunny affair in the age household, but Thanksgiving is going to be rough.
Sure. Halloween’s not going to they’re not going to come trick-or-treating at grandma and grandpa’s this year. It’s not happening. How do you take your kids over to your parents’ neighborhood to to trick-or-treat at grandma and grandpa’s? I do, but we actually go to my sister-in-law’s neighborhood. They have a big communitywide thing. Like every house does stuff, but we do both.
Okay. All right. Do you go, Ben, when you go with your kids, do you go hunting the neighborhood with like the the big candy?
There’s one house. Yeah.
I did. Growing up, there was a neighborhood in Norm that you always stopped by because there the king-size candy bars were across the entire street. So,
so I feel like here’s my policy on that. And I’m not a big holiday person as you know, but I’m fine with that kind I’m fine with that kind of behavior from a child. The adults that sniff out the good candy, I’m not fine with that. I feel like that’s not cool. But if you know, like Hatch hears about this neighborhood at school or whatever and he’s like, “Mom and dad, we got to get over to this neighborhood.” Like, okay, that’s fine. I get that.
But if you Ben are scouting it out on the Snap Talk like, “Okay, who’s giving out the kids?” Right?
I don’t I don’t think that’s cool. I can respect that.
Yeah, of course.
Is that fair?
Yeah, that’s fair. Absolutely fair.
Because Yeah, if you’re if you’re a parent telling your kids, “Hey kid, we’re driving across town just to
Yeah. relax.
Yeah, that’s that’s my thing. Now, I have evolved. You guys would be proud of me.” My old Halloween protocol was just leaving an empty bucket out on the front porch with a note that says, “Please take one.”
Because then everybody You’re the Halloween Grinch. Look at you go. But then everybody assumes that it was some greedy teenager and not
not you being greedy.
Me just not participating.
A miser.
Being a miser. Yeah.
Yeah. But now I I feel the ball.
That’s nice of you. And then some kid does inevitably just come steal it all. Yeah. I’ve seen it on my doorbell camera over and over and over.
But now I at least try.
Okay.
Uh All right. Stay tuned. We wrap up the show. Coming up next, 975 DKSL Sports Zone.
Accessing. This is Hance Olsson and Scotty G. The immediate resolve of this is best case scenario for Jake Rhett’s laugh and for BYU. We were thinking that this civil suit would tie him up to past 2026 and that would hamper him and that would leave BYU on the hook for questions. BYU would have to answer, well, yeah, we don’t know, you know, two, three weeks into the season. Is Jake Rzlo, how’s the civil suit? Is it going to get resolved? if it does get resolved, will he be eligible? And then the same questions for Jake. Now, at Big 12 media day, we can start talking about Trace Borg. We can start talking about Beck Hilstead. It could be, “Hey, so Jake’s gone.” Yeah, Jake’s gone. Okay, so tell me about this Bear kid that you brought in for Stanford and how does he fit into Aaron Rodri’s system? And what does the quarterback room look like now that Brett’s laugh’s gone? And we’re talking football. Catch Hans and Scotty weekdays from noon to 3 on 975 the KSL Sports Zone. Jake and Ben 975 the KSL Sports Zone. Jake Scott, Ben Anderson. Uh Ben, couple minutes and we’ll turn it over to Hansen Scotty. I’ve been uh I’ve been keeping this one all show. So, the uh according to the New York Post, uh, Browns quarterback Deshawn Watson is taking Shidor Sanders under his wing. Hold on.
Yeah. Hey, that the New York Post, that’s what they’re saying.
I’m trying to think of what is a is how could you find a worse headline a worse headline in Cleveland right now?
Is there also a worse mentor versus mentee relation?
Yeah, right. You can’t I can’t find a an absolutely more dreadful storyline, if I’m a Cleveland Browns fan, than that one. First of all, I can’t believe Deshun Watson I know he’s under contract, but is even like would you want him even around your team?
Not Not even a little bit. Uh if you’re Shidor, I think maybe I’d ask Joe Flacco for advice before I would Deshun Watson or even Tiny Hands Picket. The Pistons drafted Chaz Laneir with the second with their second round pick. You don’t want the headline Malik Beasley is taking Chaz Laneir under his wing. I mean, maybe Malik is fine. Maybe nothing happens. But yeah, there are what we have designated mentors in the building, coaches.
Uhhuh.
Psychologists, adults, former players, other players currently on the roster. Everybody but Deshawn. Anybody but Deshawn. almost anybody in the league but Deshan. Correct. Your dad. Listen to your dad. Yeah. Listen. Absolutely. Great point. We’re bringing in LiAngelo Ball to mentor you. And that’s a better option than uh
than Deshawn Watson.
Deshawn Watson.
Well, I don’t think Shidor is going to make the team anyway. So, I don’t think that it matters. Maybe this is Deshawn getting some headlines or something.
I’m uh I’m really curious. This this Shadore thing is going to get interesting. We have a We have an NFL game this month. Well, they’re going to keep Flaco, I would guess.
Yeah, Flacco’s there.
And they just signed Tiny Hands.
Yeah.
And then they drafted Dylan Gabriel
ahead of in front of Shidor.
Yeah. And Dylan Gabriel probably is on the practice squad.
So, yeah, I don’t think Shidor makes the team
with you. But I definitely would not be taking advice from Deshaun Watson. Even Even if you’re the Browns and are like, “Okay, well, maybe you can teach him some stuff on the field.” You’d have to be like, “Listen, whatever he says about off the- field behavior, you need to completely ignore all of that.”
Yeah. Completely ignore all of that.
Yeah.
But yeah, I don’t think uh I I don’t think if I were Shidor, I’d be seeking out Deshun Watson. No.
Former Pro Bowl receiver, this is from penlive.com, TJ Hushmanada, Hush Menzada, excuse me, recently shared on the Nightcap podcast what he’s hearing about the Browns quarterback competition. Uh, Hushmanzada says it’s a currently a two-player race and that Shadur Sanders is not one of the two. I was told from somebody in the building that ain’t a player. It’s really coming down to Kenny or Dylan Gabriel. Not a surprise.
Yeah.
Well, they invested more in Dylan. Third round pick.
Yeah.
So, yeah, Shador had to come in guns ablazing. And I’m sure that um you know getting that speeding ticket or whatever didn’t help, but he had a long it was that was a long shot to begin with unless he truly fell for crazy reasons and he was still the greatest quarterback anybody’s ever seen, which I don’t think was ever the case. But that was the only way he was going to make the Browns.
Yeah. Wonder who his agent is. You should be making phone calls today.
Yeah. Get me out of Cleveland. Well, it just prepare for the inevitable.
Yep.
Because he’s not making it all the way through camp. Are the Browns uh your that show you love? What is it?
Hard. Is that the Browns this year?
Who was it?
Be pretty awesome every Hey Lloyd, who’s Hard Knocks this year? You know those sorts of things. Is it
Bills?
It’s the Bills. Oh, it’s going to be boring. Okay. I uh
I guess I don’t watch it anyway.
Is it going to be focused on Josh Allen and his new bride? I’m sure.
Haley Steinfeld.
Will it be as propaganda e e as the Rogers Jets one?
No, because it doesn’t need to be. Why not?
Well, you had to sell that that Aaron Rogers was still a good quarterback and he hadn’t been a good quarterback for a while when he went to the Jets. And the Jets don’t know how to do anything right. I told you I sold all my Bills stock. I stand by that. But the Bills are a legitimate organization. They have adults there,
man. The Jets were really mean to Zach Wilson
in that. I think I watched one episode of that season just to check it out. And half Zack was about them just insulting Zack Wilson.
By the way, did Zach just get married yesterday? Am I right on that? Did Zach get married?
He did get married.
Shout out to Zach.
Good for him. Luckily in love.
Got married on Saturday if I recall correctly.
Here in Utah, New York City.
How old is the woman? It’s not a It’s not a a Not a cougar situation.
No.
Okay.
I think she’s
She’s like a Tik Tok influencer if I recall correctly.
Yeah. Good for her.
Very legitimate career.
Is it? It’s being a quarterback for the Jets. It’s got to be more more beneficial.
The Dolphins now.
More beneficial to society than influencers?
I bet she’s happy to be in Miami. That’s great. If you’re an influencer, there’s no better place to be than Miami. Beautiful scenery, beaches, people. That’s great. Rooting for Zack. Truly rooting for Zack.
Uh, all right. Stay tuned. Hans and Scotty G are coming up next.

The entrirety of Jake and Ben for July 1, 2025:

HOUR ONE

• Damian Lillard waived as Milwuakee Bucks make moves

• Top 3 Stories at KSLSports.com

• KD’s Summer League debut and PK’s moment

HOUR TWO

• LeBron James needs to realize he’s lost control

• Who will the Utah Jazz start this fall?

• Deshaun Watson is mentoring Shedeur Sanders