Hour 4: Ben Anderson Talking NBA & Utah Jazz | Slacker Radio Headlines | Feedback of the Day
DJ PK. No, PK. To my right is not Patrick Kinnan. He’s vacationing. It’s summertime. Instead, it’s Ben Anderson coming in early. Thank you, Ben. Nominate the youth sports volunteer that 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 Hercules Hero of the Week sponsored by Hercules First Federal Credit Union and Behive Meals. There it is. He comes in, delivers a raid. You’re the man, Ben. Way to go. Hey, David. Look at you. How are you? I’m doing well. How are you? Good. Thanks for waiting for me. No worries. We were uh we were a little late anyway, so it all works out. All right. Question for you. Wanted to have you in here and uh pick your brain. You’re at a lot of jazz games. Focused on them. I mean, you for your radio show, you follow everything. Yeah. But for the main gig, writing for the old dotr, you’re locked in on the jazz. Creating content on a regular basis. Well, it’s a mix. It’s a mix of stuff that’s um more pop culturish entertainment, but occasionally there’s the deep dive. And I like some of your questions like with Will, I’m like, “Okay, he’s been thinking about this. That’s not a question just popped into his head now.” He was mulling this over at 3:00 this afternoon. Nothing else going on in the brain. Yeah, I know, right? I know the feeling. I know the feeling. So, I’m curious your biggest takeaway. And I’m sure you get asked stuff, you know, friends and family and all that, but you watch all these young guys, the rookies, but you know, the second year guys in that, too. Uh, you watch all these young guys. What’s your biggest takeaway from watching them play here in the summer? I’m going to be underwhelming and say it’s that Isaiah Collier can’t shoot. Okay. And I say that because I think it is the most impactful based on last year Isaiah Collier had quote unquote won the starting job. He was the Jazz’s starting point guard to end the season. His entire ability to be on the floor for starters minutes is going to be dependent on his ability to shoot the ball. And not only is he not shooting it well from the three-point line, he’s not shooting it well from the floor and he’s not even making his free throws. It’s just a real lack of indicators that the touch is there and and it’s not going to get better. You’re giving up hope. You’re letting go of the rope. I just you would hope that maybe first year a little rough, second year you come back and there’s just enough of the things that where the ball doesn’t go in that it’s not bad stretch. You know, you can have a bad shooting stretch, you can have a bad summer league and still see some of the signs that, you know, other things are there. And I I do think the other things are there with Isaiah. He’s a good playmaker. His speed’s good. I like his toughness. But if all things that can keep you in the league, but it’s going to keep you in the league in a backup role, smaller role. Yeah. Yeah, cuz if you can’t shoot, it just makes you really hard to play with Walker Kesler specifically because Walker doesn’t shoot. And you know, you and I watch the Jazz 80s and 90s. You’ve watched the NBA 80s and 90s. You know, how many shooters did the the Lakers in the 80s have on the floor? Like shooters. Kareem didn’t shoot. Magic didn’t shoot. Well, it was a different era. Yeah, but I mean, they they didn’t they weren’t required to shoot threes. The floor was spaced differently. Teams defended differently. uh the the players weren’t as big, right? You demand more space now because the players are a so tall and b people underappreciate this. They’re so long. So when you stick out your arms sideways, your ability to deflect a pass without moving. Yeah. Yeah. You’re taking away passing lanes and players weren’t that big then. You know, a team would start a sixoot point guard and a 6’2 uh shooting guard and maybe a 65 small forward. That line now would be laughed off the floor. And it’s so small. The Jazz in the 80s had Daryl Griffith. He was their shooter. And in the 90s, it was Jeff Malone and then Hornet comes in and John was always a very good shooter, but you had shooting because you had two players on the floor. And there was a handful of good shooters in the NBA, period. Yeah. And then, you know, you started to need to get a little bit more, a little bit more. And now the point where you probably have to have at least four good shooters on the floor at all times. I can tell you the first time I saw four out and one in and it worked and it was stunning. And people are like, “Why is Carl Malone struggling? Why isn’t he rebound?” I’m like, “Because he has to defend Robert Ory and Robert Ory is 25 feet from the hoop.” Yeah. But if you don’t get out there and get a hand up, are you talking Rockets Robert Ory? I am. Mid90s. Yeah. That was it. They played a Keem inside and they have four guys. And up until that point, and we’ve had a we had a few times, and this goes to how the Jazz need to build this team. Up until that time, there’d been two, three stars, right? I mean, the Lakers, the Celtics, into the Pistons, who were a little shorter on st star power into the Bulls and all of a sudden here comes Hakee and it’s Hakee and four guys on the three-point line. And there were some nice players. Kenny Smith the Jet Smith was on that team. Marieli was on the team. These are all nice players, right? But when you’re talking Batman and Robin, no, they’re not a superhero. Good players, great great careers and all that, but they’re not Pippen. They were really excited to get Pipp and that never paid off for them. Right. So that and that was the start of a trend and we’ve seen it since the Mavericks with uh Dirk Nitzky. He he didn’t win with a Robin. Right. Right. So it can happen. Toronto I mean was Pascal Seakum Robin Dawco Leonard’s Batman. You know he’s you could do it now. And maybe that’s how the Jazz need to build going forward. I still think you probably need Batman and Robin. You probably need the second banana whatever the expression is. Um, but you can do it without him. So, if Walker’s not going to shoot, and I’m not a big time believer in Walker’s ability to step out and shoot threes, even though he’s trying, and Collier can’t shoot. Filing him next to Derek Favors. Sure. Yeah, Favors tried. Another big man tried to get him threes. Hey, that went in. Okay. Well, he shoots 22%. So, they’re going to go in once in a while. Um, yeah. Right. Let’s not get too excited about one or two. So you probably can’t play Isaiah and Walker together a whole lot, right? So Walker is going to play 33 minutes. Collier’s at 15 max. Yeah. Right. If you’re going to be really good. Yeah. And you look at the Jazz’s rotation next year and Ysef Nerkage can space the floor a little bit off the bench. Actually, he can he can do that both with his passing and his shooting. So, and Taylor Hendricks is going to be able to space the floor. Well, again, you’re just talking about how do you build lineups? How do you build lineups that actually make sense for these guys to learn something that will resemble what they are going to be in the NBA and you can put four other shooters on the floor in the second unit next to Isaiah Collier and I don’t know if you line up. Yeah. So Nerkach and you could also just put out a bad lineup, Cody Williams, whatever. You may have to run some lineups out there where you don’t have two shooters and it’s going to be hard and he’s going to have to use his other skills and then that means that you probably either got Walt Clayton or Keonte George starting a point guard and I do think that matters because that’s the exposure that Austin Ang is going to get to the team. So when he walks in the door day one, he’s there already, but what does that starting lineup look like and who’s playing? And you know, I’ve heard that a lot of the Colin Ston, the decision to move Colin Sexton was about Kee George was to empower Keont because they really like what he’s done this summer apparently. So I haven’t seen it because he hasn’t played. So but that’s what I’ve heard. So we’ll see. I’m I’m really curious. He needs to take a big step forward. He does. This is his make or break here. I think that we’re all talking about Cody Williams needs to take a big step forward. And I feel like he’s taken a step forward. Not sure I’d categorize it as a big step, you know. No, it’s a long but it’s a marathon. So, you know, oh, you’ve only run two miles. Well, if you’re going to run a marathon, you have to run two miles. You know, we’ll judge the third mile when we run the third mile. Yeah. Can’t judge that yet. And and so with Kee, it’s another year down the road. And it hasn’t been good enough, you know. No, it has not. Shot selection has to change. Um, but I also think attitude and competitiveness has to change, right? But one thing that makes you a better shooter, you know, this guy’s a 40% shooter. How’s he going to get to 45%? Well, he shoots four of 10. And one time a game, you know, he probably takes two or three bad shots. And once a game, once a game, you have to stifle the urge to take the bad shot. Yeah. Because if you’re four of nine instead of four of 10, you’re a 44% shooter and people look at you differently. So, as much as it is about is his elbow out and blah blah blah, does he bend his knees? All the little fundamentals you learn in camp, it’s about once a game, guess what? You’re not open pass the ball. Yep. And you know when do you recognize it? Yes. And that’s that’s the ability deep down I think you do. You would hope so. Some guys don’t and they don’t make it. But I think that’s where you know that’s why I I honestly would think it’s going to be Walt Clayton or Keonte battling for that starting spot. If you think Ace Bailey is going to start, I don’t know if you start two of the new rookies day one. I think that can be hard on teams. Um so maybe you go with Keonte and Ace Bailey. I don’t really worry about who starts. I realize the coach has to. But as far as development, tell me about the minutes and tell me about the FGAAS, you know, because if you get the minutes, but you don’t get the shots because you’re standing in the corner and they don’t leave you. I just don’t know how much you’re learning from that that’s going to apply three, four, five years down the line when hopefully they’re a lot better than this. Yeah. I mean, everybody talks about a long rebuild. I’m like, well, sure, but the Pacers and the Thunder were both in the lottery three years in a row, and then years four and five, they get to five and they’re both in the finals playing each other. Y how long a rebuild does it have to be, right? Well, apparently longer the Jazz. How much longer? I don’t know. And the other part about this with Isaiah Collier, not to be a dead horse, but I mean, he’s not big. You know, he’s listed at 6’5. He’s 6’2. As is Kee George, while Clayton’s the tallest of all of them, he might be 6’3. So, as you just said about the 80s Lakers or the 80s basketball, you could play a 6’2 point guard and a 6-3 shooting guard and a 6’5 small forward. Yeah. Well, you can’t anymore. So, you probably can’t play Isaiah Collier, Kee George, and Wald Clayton in the rotation. You can probably long term you can probably only play two of them and they’ve got to be your point guards which is why the Jazz have been trying to make Kante George a point guard for a long time but that’s not going to work. Think you’re got to get rid of one of them. Well, and so that’s what you got. Austin just got here. Well, well, what I do like about that is Sexton’s not on the timeline for the Jazz winning as long as it’s going to take. as much as I can sight Oklahoma City and Indiana and be impatient and as you can see I can already do all those things. Congrats to me. Um so I get why they move on from Sexton and because of the way the second apron works the value of a veteran has gone way down. It’s just it’s it’s there’s too many teams up against it and they don’t they want to they don’t want to pay the the double down on the bonus luxury tax. It’s just too much money even for these multi-billionaires. So, what you have to do in this rebuild is they draft three guys every year. You got to make sure you don’t have your Clipper SGA moment. Some guy who hasn’t been used right, who hasn’t quite figured it out, who’s young and you give them up. Now, in the Clippers defense, they were making what they thought was a big trade and they knew they had to give up some talent. You weren’t you weren’t in a place to leverage Paul George for nothing, right? But let’s be honest, they blew it in spectacular fashion. Yeah, absolutely. It’s one of the worst Clippers. Clippers going to clip in history. Yeah. Yeah. And they did it again. Good for you guys. Excellent. Well, in the Jazz rebuild, as much as you want to draft the right guys, you have to make sure you give them time to develop. So, even if I don’t think Kante is going to develop into what they want him to be, which I don’t think he’s going to. I get why they move Ston and why Austin says we’re going to put him in there. We’re going to see what it looks like. And if he does, if something does click and if he gets some stuff, which I think instinctually he just lacks because he hasn’t been coached at it for 10 years and he hasn’t had all those reps. I mean, he starts the offense too late for starters. Yeah. Before anything has happened. Y and I’m sitting up in the booth with ask Jake and Tim. I just like it’s 15 on the clock. It’s nine on the clock and you haven’t passed the ball one time. I can go out and defend if you dribble over there and stand and look at a guy and I’m an old broken down never was lousy high school basketball player. But if you just let me stand on the weak side next to my guy and nobody cuts and nobody passes you and I can defend. Yeah. And that he doesn’t know that at this point drives me insane. Yeah. I recognize that and I think long term that’s probably why Walt Clayton’s going to be the guy for the Jazz. I believe that and you know long- winded way of getting to this point of Isaiah Collier can’t shoot so they’re going to try out Kee because Keante has experience and I think starting both Ace Bailey and Walt Clayton day one puts everyone else at a disadvantage because it is a very steep learning curve in the NBA. If they invest 30 40 50 games to make sure cuz like if it clicks in for Keonte then suddenly a lot of things could go right. Yeah. Great. Right. I don’t think it’s going to break that way, but if it does, but what they can’t do is move Keonte and it clicks in two years later. You know, nobody wants to be on the wrong end of the Chanty Bilips career progression. Yeah. There’s a guy who bounced around three, four teams, give up on him and all of a sudden, wow. Yeah. Finals MVP. Yeah. Yeah. And in a a run, we were just talking uh NFL about, you know, how you have to get lucky to win a Super Bowl, right? But you could you can be in an NFC title game five years in a row because you’re a good organization making good decisions. And it’s thrilling for the fans. The dopamine releases we were talking about earlier. Excellent. So if they want if they want to spend 30, 40, 50 games on Keonte, making sure it’s not clicking in and Austin wants to make sure, okay, before I move this guy, he can’t I can’t even blow up and look awesome, you know, wherever in two or three years, that’s fine. Especially in a year when the draft is really good and when they convey the pick if it’s not top eight, it’s like this is the perfect time to double down on making sure that you see what you think you see. Do you think they’re lukewarm on Kee? Like this is the last chance or do you think they really think it’s going to work out and they don’t have any of the doubt that I clearly have? I can’t imagine there’s not doubt. You know, Will Hardy has coached him every game of his career and Danny Angel has seen every game of his career. Okay. But they’ve also seen a bunch of practices that I haven’t seen. They’ve sat in a bunch of film sits with I that I haven’t. And they get to hang out and talk with him and know his, you know, we get a very short window that’s very structured, right? And so maybe they’re like, “This guy’s doing all the right things. We got to keep investing. It’s going to pay off.” You know, you can’t drive a clutch until you can, right? Um, I I believe whatever they’ve seen this summer implies they think maybe he’s learned how to drive the clutch. Maybe some buy in that maybe they hadn’t seen. And I don’t Kant’s never been a bad buyin guy. Like he’s there. He’s there all summer. But it doesn’t take not bad. It takes very good. Yeah, it does. Especially when you’re his size. Yeah. for all the guys in the league who are trying to make it like 6’4 and smaller. It’s a huge ask. Yeah, it’s a huge ask. You’re running around against so many 68, 610 guys. You ever been in a game with guys who are four, five, six inch taller than you? It makes the game really hard. Yeah, it’s hard. It’s really hard. Isaiah Collier, just to put a bow on this, 41% from the floor, 31% from three, which is not completely untenable. It’s not there, but it’s not so far away. No, but it needs to be 37 or 38. It’s 43% for the free throw line. Just really bad indicators that the other touch. Say that again. 43% for the three-point free throw line. How many free throws? Four attempts a game. It’s a lot. Means he’s making one out of four a game. I mean, he’s making 1.8 out of 43% is making. It’s three out of every seven. Yeah. Right. Right. It’s really bad. Yeah. O. All right, DJ and PK. More in a moment. More on the Jazz. We recap everything you missed in this show. Stay with us. accessing. This is Hance Olsson and Scotty G. You don’t need to get an associate AD from Florida State University who’s got no ties to the community, but oh, hey, he raised this much money at Florida State because he’s going to come in thinking he’s got a Florida State budget. Guess what? We’ve met a lot of P5 athletic directors and a lot of them are duds. Yeah. They don’t need some dude from a big school who’s got this crazy resume because he’s going to come in and think that he’s got to run it like Ohio State or he’s got to run it like Florida State or he’s got to run it like Michigan, but he doesn’t have that money. So, he doesn’t know how to adapt. He doesn’t know how to stretch a dollar. He doesn’t know how to do all these things because he’s just used to throwing money at problems. Well, you can’t do that at Utah State. You’ve done that now. It’s not working. Catch Hans and Scotty weekdays from noon to 3 on 975 the KSL sports zone so nam slacker ready headlines brought to you by trade and wealth call trade and wealth today your local trusted financial fiduciary 8018997600 or visit the website at trajewealth.com uh we talked a little jazz this morning the Utah Jazz beat the Washington Wizards 8676 Cody Williams 23 points in the wina Collier added 17 the next time if they play Friday that will be the last time in a long time that they’re in lineups where they can get 16 and 17 shots and deserve them together at the same time. But that was the lineup. We’ll see who plays. Philip Powski also sat now and all the first round picks. A Ace was sitting again. We going to see anybody tomorrow night. Collier maybe Tani. Uh Tanji sat. Yeah, he sat last night. I But you think he’ll be back? They’ll give one more. Yeah. Uh anybody really impress you? Anybody better than you thought based on what you saw in the summer league? I mean, it’s hard to it’s hard to know what to pull. 100%. That’s why we’re asking you to do it. You’re an expert at it. Looking worse is a bigger deal than looking great. Totally agree with that. When I see someone fail in the summer league, if you’re struggling in the summer league, I know you can’t do it in the NBA. If you can do it in the summer league, maybe you can do it when the NBA starts. So, I mean, what Kyle Philipowski did was unreal. You know, he’s I didn’t know if I figured you were either going to say Philip Powski or Sensoff. I still think he’s the leading scoreer in Vegas summer league right now. I know another guy put up 37 last night, but he’s averaging 29.3 points per game. Like, he’s truly dominating guys and in a lot of ways, shooting threes. He was getting to the free throw line, is finishing inside, big dunks, driving from the, you know, like awesome dunk to the stuff is there. A lot of that stuff is there. And then my question, I really offended Will Hardy last year when I asked this late in the season. I said like, “When did you decide you were going to really invest in Kyle Filipowski?” He’s like, “Well, I invest in everybody.” It’s like, yeah, kind of not really. You don’t you don’t you don’t play everybody 48 minutes. So, right, while you’re invested and you talk to everyone and you practice everyone, you watch everyone’s tape. I get that. But still, if you give somebody 12 minutes and somebody 24 and somebody 36 minutes, I think most of it say you invested more than the guy played 36 minutes. And that was either a pregame or a postgame, but it was probably game 65. Yeah. Is he really offended or does he just like dueling with you because he gets bored sometimes and he knows you’re smart? and maybe it’s the right answer. Maybe he’s just trying to give the right answer if we give everyone an equal opportunity once they’re on the floor. And he probably also does believe that, you know, you love all your kids the same and you try and make sure they all have long successful careers. But at the same time, off the record before the season started, talking to somebody else about Kyle Filipki was that the shot never went in in practice and that he was going to start the season in the G-League. And had Taylor Hendricks not broken his leg, I don’t know when we would have seen him. So the broken leg opened up minutes for Flip. Flip capitalized immediately. I remember the game in San Antonio when he played so well and then he kind of just stuck around and invested more and more and I I am curious about that. When do you know that it’s worth investing in this type of prospect? And I I don’t know that’s a coaching decision that has to do with practice. That has to do with big-time conversations that you have with the front office. And it’s relative. It depends who else is on the roster. They invested a lot of shots in two guys last night. They don’t usually do that. But you said, but it’s relative. Field goal attempts. You you mentioned that in the last segment. It really matters. Well, look, you can draw up plays to up a guy’s field goal opportunities. Yeah. So, what are you gonna do for Flip next year? And that’s what I’m curious about because when you make him the focal point of an offense in summer league, even with a bunch of other first round picks around him, he’s still better than everybody else. And he was better at Duke than everybody else and he was better in high school than everybody else. So, do you keep trying to scale? How do you scale up and and can he? Yeah. the the thing that I love that he did that I also know isn’t real, which I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but late in that game, the last one he played, not last night, he was DMP last night. Um he went to the hoop twice memorably, right? Once on that sideline inbounds play, and he turns around, he’s guarded by a smaller guy, Mouse in the house. He could he’s five of eight from three. Well, at that point, he may have been 470 because he took more, but you know, he’s he’s hot from three. So, if he takes three, I don’t blame him. Mouse announcement taking the hoop, gets cut off, spin move, scores, looks good doing it. All right, that passes the eyeball test and it went in. And then gets an offensive rebound they had to have. Gives the ball up. Wasn’t a big fan of that, but he’s a little off balance. Understand it. And I’m like, they better give it back to him. Which they didn’t on two other occasions, but this time they did, right? And he just decides that I’m going to the hoop. And when he gets halfway to the hoop, he’s like, “Yeah, I can’t take any chance with this. I got to throw it down.” And he does. and he’s flexing and that’s all awesome, but in the NBA there going to be so many bigger players between him and the hoop. I don’t know that that can be replicated. I’m glad he has that mindset and that when he saw the opportunity, he recognized and he took it. Those are all positives, but executing that in an NBA regular season game could be trickier. Now, you can argue, hey, maybe he’ll be surrounded by better shooters and the floor will be spread. So, maybe sometimes it’ll be easier and he could have some strong finishes. Yeah, he can drive and pass. This what? Everybody wants a 25 or 30 point score to hang their hat on. Every Jazz fan will feel better about the rebuild. And it could turn out to be totally wrong because the Warriors had to move Monte Ellis to open up time and the fans hated it and booed the new owner at midc court. Now, in retrospect, the new owner is a genius and hired the right people and listened to them and the old owner is the reason that they were in the playoffs one time in 17 years. But did the fan base get that? No. I’m going to hang my hat on Monte scoring 30 points. I’m going to feel good about it. Whereas J West was saying that’s not championship basketball. We’ll take one step back and we will very quickly take 10 steps forward. Yeah. And he was right. Mhm. Because he’s the logo. So that’s these lessons. Apply them now. Yeah. Work with me. Yeah. So that’s I mean that’s what we’re looking at with Flip. And I do think I I think I know what Bryce Sens is. And what is he? I just think he’s a specialist shooter. Okay. And that’s not a knock on him. There’s never been a better time to be in the NBA as a specialist shooter. Yeah. And I could tell you, I could name guys over the last 30 years been specialist shooters are awesome. Yeah. Eddie Johnson had an awesome career, right? And what did he do? He came in and he put the ball in the bucket from everywhere. Dale Ellis, same deal. And because he had an awesome nickname and won championships, we can’t go very far without saying Vinnie the Microwave Johnson. These guys have always existed in the NBA. And you’re right, it’s just been up now. You got to have them. And if you don’t have them, then you’re Phoenix and you’re Denver. And then the question, why isn’t your bench better? Yeah. Well, you didn’t identify and develop these guys. So, I don’t know if he’s going to be a creator. I don’t know if he’s going to dribble a whole lot. Maybe when a guy attacks a close out and he can get to the paint a little bit and get to a mid-range jump. I think the rules are set up for people who dribble a lot now. No, it it doesn’t. No, you watch I mean, why has LeBron had the career he’s had? Most of the time when you see it like he’s on the three-point line and one or two dribbles later he’s dunking it on everybody. It’s not about dribbling a lot. No, it’s not a dribbling league at all. It’s a passing league. It’s a shooting league, but it’s not a dribbling league. I think you’re right on about that. And so, yeah, Bryce just become one of the 20 best shooters in the NBA and you’re really important if you are, you know, and I think that’s good. Good for him. You will always have a gig and you fit. You guys need that. Anybody who has star potential or Batman and Robin, we’re still waiting. Or Ace Bailey maybe, but it’s so early. It’s so early with Ace, but I mean that second game I have not seen a player physically overwhelm an opponent in a Jazz uniform like that with the exception of some Rudy Gobear performances just because he was seven foot one. But certainly nobody on the perimeter have I ever ever maybe seen a Jazz uh player overwhelm the opposing team with offensive rebounds and one step and a power dribble and a dunk and just like, “Oh yeah, that is really helpful.” Maybe Kirolinko on his best nights early in his career. His best nights early during the career, but he couldn’t sustain it. And later in his career, those nights were more rare. Yeah. He he regressed over time. So that’s that. I mean, that’s still why you drafted him at number five overall. It’s why he was the kind of consensus number three overall player throughout the year and then whatever the pre-draft stuff hurt him. But yeah, those the star stuff is there with him for sure. Also in this show, we had Bob Casper on coast of Real Golf Radio. Did you watch uh golf before you went to bed last night? I did the first round. at 11:35. It’s hard. It keeps going. They go for like 16 hours. Yeah. It’s hilarious. Yep. Go to bed and wake up and wake up. They’re still going. I did. I checked the leaderboard before we went to bed and it was already guys two under. Yeah. Well, I got to sleep and I woke up and they were four under. Yeah. Uh the Open Championship right now, I don’t think anyone’s done better than four under, have they? I think we’re still That’s where the uh We got a fourth player now. Aaron Ry is out to four under through eight. Maybe he’ll go low. We also had John McMullen on Philadelphia Eagles Insider for Sports Illustrated ran us through the uh the NFC East where the story really is ownership. Jerry Jones, he went into in great detail salary cap stuff. Jerry Jones loves the headlines, so he waits to sign guys, but guys get a percentage of the salary cap. In the meantime, the salary cap goes up and you end up paying them more money and you’re just taxing yourself. You’re jamming yourself up. He says the Eagles sign everybody early and have no drama and then they have more money to spend on good players. Did you know the Cowboys have gone to the playoffs and won five playoff games since they won their last Super Bowl? Five playoff wins in 30 years. The Jaguars, recognized as a bad franchise, run poorly with only intermittent success, have won eight playoff games in the same time span. Jerry, what are you doing? You’re not doing a good job making money. That’s what he’s doing. He’s very good at the show biz aspect and he’s very good at the finances and the business. Well, the older you get, the more you realize more money does not mean you’re smarter. You do some things well, right? But it doesn’t mean you’re good at everything. And uh I think sometimes a lot of Well, I mean, everyone thinks they’re good at everything, right? Everyone thinks they’re smart. Everyone thinks they can run the Cowboys. I I know I’m not good at everything, but a lot of people think they could run a sports team better than the I’m not good at everything. And that’s why you’ve never seen me dance on TV. But the problem is you’ve never danced. You don’t think you’ve ever done a little diddy. Find the video. The way tries to not a good singer and he sings on every show. See, he thinks he’s good at everything. See, the thing is he knows he’s so bad he’s good. Yeah. Hit it. Y. Come on. Give us one. PK’s not around to sing. Uh, so the Cowboys, he sings a spring singing song and he dies at the end. You can literally hear his soul leave his body. Uh, ironically, [Music] and I can’t get enough of you, baby. Can you get enough of me? That was long. Point taken. It’s a long. Let’s get physical. Okay, stop. Physical. You were going to make a point about the NFL. Please do. Giants have historically had very good ownership and they’ve been atrocious for a while now. Yeah. They haven’t figured it out. Two playoff games in 13 years. But the Commanders go it’s going to be two and 14. Arguably the worst owner in sports to one anybody and suddenly John made the point he’s a mediocre owner in Philly. I mean they just can’t get to a conference final. But he’s very good for Washington. Now he is falling a low bar and you know did he hire the right coach and they draft the right quarterback and all of a sudden you’re on your way. If you can get coach, quarterback, GM, owner right, you’re awfully close to a very good place. I don’t know the places we can look and say, you know, they’ve really got a good owner, GM, coach, and quarterback, but that team just doesn’t win. Can’t figure it out. That’s not something that’s not something you say very often. I mean, the Giants won that way when they had Eli, who was only a pretty good quarterback, not a great quarterback. Well, they didn’t sustain success, but their peaks were excellent. Yeah. Now, they would win a Super Bowl and then miss the playoffs. You know, it wasn’t Andy Reid in Philly in the NFC title game every year. Yeah. Yeah. Andy Reid’s been to a lot of conference title games now. He had a run in Philly, which was awesome, and then he has a better run in KC. I’ve enjoyed the narrative shift on Andy Reid. I’ve always been an Andy Reid fan. I don’t know why. I’ve always liked the Eagles. It’s just kind of a team I liked growing up be because Andy’s got a tie to BYU and you grew up in Utah and he represents the Beehive State. Maybe I just was catching David James and he was giving me updates and he would mention Andy Reid and I thought, “Okay, that’s there’s some name familiarity there. Advertising works.” And then I see him on TV and I say, “I know who that coach is. Uh, so I like him.” And you see, but when you watch the games, they win way more than they lose. But I wasn’t a 49ers fan. I wasn’t a Steve Young fan. So I don’t know. I didn’t have BYU or Utah ties growing up at all. So, I think I’ve always just like Andy Reid, but he was a lovable loser. And that’s not the case anymore. So, I’ve enjoyed that. I’ve enjoyed that switch for him. Few pe few people have changed their reputation in sports as much as he has, as positively as he has on what seemed like he was probably pretty close to the end of his rope. The end of his run. Just can’t win the big one. Yeah. and all of a sudden he’s got three Super Bowls and now he’s top five in everything like playoff wins, Super Bowl wins, regular season wins, it doesn’t matter. Super Bowl appearances, whatever. Uh last thing, Bradley Beal, two years, 11 million with the Clippers. Clip going to clip. You like that decision? I do like the decision. I like the addition of John Collins. Um he’s better than Norman. Two different things. No, I just like what the Clippers have done. It’s you got to take a holistic approach. you if you take a if you make moves in a vacuum, you turn into the Phoenix Suns. They had a really good team. They were up 20 in the finals in 2001. That was 49 months ago. And look at them now. Look at them now. Because they made a lot of moves in a vacuum. They didn’t look at how it was going to impact everything else. They thought, well, Kevin Durant’s better than Male Bridges, so you go get Kevin Durant. It’s like, but is he better next to Devin Booker? Is he better next to Chris Paul? Is it better to have Cam Johnson and Male Bridges and all your draft picks or Kevin Durant? But you make that in a vacuum. And then you say, “Well, I think Bradley Beal is better than Chris Paul, so I’m going to make that move in a vacuum. There’s only one ball and Bradley Beal needs it and Kevin Durant needs it and Devin Booker needs it.” Okay. So, where are you going? But you now look at what the Clippers have done and yeah, you lose Norman Powell and you trade him for John Collins, which maybe Norman Powell is a better player than John Collins. But if you’re getting John Collins and Bradley Beal, Allah, you’re not making moves in a vacuum. You’re making moves with future moves uh in mind already and you’re tampering with other teams players knowing they will take a buyout because you will make them whole nearly on your contract. You can get away with that stuff. So that was a good move. So Bill’s going to make winning plays and they’re going to win the playoff series that elude them. Well, it’s going to depend on Quai and Quai’s only good for about 30 games, but when he’s good for those 30 games, he’s as good as anybody in the NBA still. DJ PK, your feedback next with Ben Anderson sitting in right here in the zone. And it’s all over almost here. Don’t go nowhere. When big Friday, it’s a free tickets Friday. And tomorrow we’re giving giving away tickets to Dirk Bentley’s Broken Branches tour. Come to the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheater on July 31st. Get tickets now at lienation.com or listen to the zone all day Friday for your chance to win. All right, time for your your feedback, everything you had to say about today’s show. And we’re getting a lot of responses to the question. Uh, what’s your favorite sports team story event? What keeps you coming back for more off the story that PK told about how he went to John Colossimo’s future and John’s son. Very excited to see PK. Listen to your show all the time. Going to school with dad. Dad’s heart of hearing. He had the radio cranked. When I got out of the car and was walking in the doors, I could still hear it. And uh and PK was flattered. It was a little awkward. It’s kind of like it shouldn’t be about me. It should be about you. You just lost your dad. But hey, if this makes you happy, okay, you know, and the kid was clearly pumped up. And so flash forward the next day, he’s at the gym and the guy. Yeah, I stopped listening to your show. Cut him off the knees. Oh, the highs and lows in about 12 hours. Awesome. Spectacular. But that guy’s a youth fan. So of course he stopped listening. I’d stopped listening. But what eventually keeps you coming back for more? And Gman says, “Well, I’m a slow learner. I love misery and pain, aren’t we all?” What’s the worst team you rooted for that kept you coming back, even though, you know, I I mean, I grew up in San Diego. I’m a Padre fan. I even the Chargers had more success than the Padres’s. I root for one team and it’s the Chicago White Socks. Yeah, they won 40 games last year. They had the worst season in history. You did win a You did win a World Series, though. my first year rooting for the team. Honestly, that’s when you got on the bench. I bought the hat the before the season started. Total fool’s gold. Total fool’s gold. I thought this team’s easy to root for. They They are not. They’ve never made in their history the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. That’s terrible. They They’ve been around for 130 years. They’ve never made the playoffs in back-to back years. Yeah. How is that possible? They just did 2020 and 2021. That was their first time. Okay. 60 game season. Does that really count? They were 35 and 25. All right. If you want to dismiss that, you I get that. But they’ve never made the playoffs and they lost to the A’s, I think, at the playoff. Okay. But I give them pass here because they made the playoffs in 93 and then in ’94 they canceled the playoffs and they were 21 games over 500. Had Frank Thomas. They could have done it then. Sure. But that’s like the Expos. Hey, we could have won the World Series. Really good. And then they canceled it and that was our year. Ken Griffy might have the Washington Nationals, right? Didn’t Griffy have like 45 home runs and uh and uh Tony Gwyn might have hit 400 because he was at 394. Yeah, probably wouldn’t have, but he could have. Could have. He could have. It could have happened, man. Yeah. So, they won the World Series in 1917. Again, in 2005, you decided to root for him. And now they’ve for 20 years. Bought the hat in the spring of one fool’s gold season in 108 years. Gotcha. Set the hook. It is the 20-y year anniversary and they’re doing a big documentary. It’s been fun to watch. See, releases the dopamine in the brain. It comes right back. Comes right back. The uh the YouTube video comes out every Thursday, so I’m overdue. I’ve got to I’ve got to watch the final one. We’ve had a lot of dopamine references because you state Iceman said uh there’s too many moments to list. So, I’ll just leave this. David James question taps into the emotional pull of sports. A phenomenon supported by a 2021 study in the Journal of Sports Sciences showing fans experience dopamine releases similar to personal achievements when supporting their teams. probably the smartest tweet we’ve had sent to the show in 20 plus years. It usually is a series of gifts and uh youths and or Cougars suck. Uh it’s only an and if it’s an Aggie fan who sends it in, then it’s you and Cougars suck. Coug on the beach says, “What keeps me coming back?” Harleen is wide open. Y Aigor the difference. Demen. What do you think Aigor is going to be as a pro? You got any comps for him? I haven’t heard you do comps for Aigor Deon. He’s also he’s also already changed his pronunciation of his last name. What is it now? Domen. Dieor Domen. There’s no Owen there. Well, that all right. I’ll roll with it. Deman. I don’t have a lot of comps for him. Okay. He’s a unicorn. Excellent. Uh unicorns usually aren’t good because they don’t really exist. Yeah. Uh, I actually think he’s going to be best later in his career off the ball. Allah Nick Batum, current jazz man, Kyle Anderson, maybe a little Joe Engles. Why do you want to take the ball away from him? Because I don’t think he’s very good with the ball in his hands. Okay. Like he’s a good passer, right? So, you have to have the ball in your hands to do that. You know that, right? But you can be a connective passer. I can pass you the ball and then you can pass that. You don’t want him running pick and rolls. Shoot the three off the dribble. They’re gonna go under on the pick and roll and it’s going to jam up the offense. Joe Engles and look, Joe Engles became a 40% three-point shooter. That’s the gonna still be the big key for Jaor. Um, and I don’t know if he’s gonna get there, but if he does, everything opens up for him, but he’s not getting anywhere off the dribble by himself. Same with Joe Engles. Well, Joe Engles was never the Jazz starting point guard for a reason. Joe was great at pick and roll, elite shooter, might have had the highest IQ on the team, might have been the most creative passer on the team, but use him as a backup point and have him excel at a specific play running the pick and roll with Rudy. And honestly, his talent, that’s the whole thing you were just talking about with the Clipper roster and connective decisions. You, you know, Joe had talents and Rudy had talents and together it was definitely, you know, what is the cliche that I always butcher? The whole is more than the sum of the parts. Yeah. And that might be the issue for Jagor, especially in Brooklyn, is not having the other guy who compliments what he does. Yeah. Unless he really bonds with Nick Claxton, and I don’t expect that. DJ PK, Ben Anderson sitting in. Ben and Jake are next right here on the zone. Thanks, Ben. Thanks DJ.
Hour four of DJ & PK for July 17, 2025:
• Ben Anderson on the Utah Jazz in Summer League
• Slacker Radio Headlines
• Feedback of the Day
