David James: Thoughts on Utah Jazz Offseason & Player Unions
And now it’s 10:00 a.m. Let’s just get down to it and it’s time for your sports picks. Strap yourselves in, folks. From two guys who have covered the teams you’re passionate about for years. We are professionals. This is Jake Scott and Ben Anderson on 975 the KSL Sports Zone. Jacob Ben 975 the KSL Sports Zone. Jake Scott, Ben Anderson. No Ben today. He is on vacation. Are uh I think you haven’t you and PK talked about something like this. Are you uh now that you’re a Uton, are you a Lake Pal vacation guy or are you a bare lake vacation guy? Oh, you maybe pick between lakes. Well, I thought this was lake or ocean and the answer is ocean. I feel like the the maybe it’s just people who grew up here and honestly I grew up here for the most part and I’m really neither. I’ve I’ve enjoyed both but it feels like you know like Hatch Hatch is with his family up at Bear Lake. Like that’s a you know and then I grew up with several families that their thing was to go to Lake Pal you know so I’ve never been to Lake Pal so I guess by default I am Bear Lake person because I had been to be bare lake multiple times beautiful both I haven’t gone for a week all like day trip kind of stuff I took friends from Santa Barbara uh beat rider Dave Lton or as we called him Lov and Bill Mahoney sports information director and the three of us in the winter they were up for a UCSB game and I went up and I picked him up, I don’t know, 11:00 in the morning or noon or something. And we drove up Logan Canyon in the winter. The weather was nice. There was snow everywhere, but not on the road. Everywhere but the road. And we went up and when we came across to the hill and they could look down and the little turnout up there. And I got out and they were like, “Whoa, we had no idea this was here. They’ve been coming to Utah State games for years.” They loved it. It’s gorgeous. It is. It is gorgeous. Okay. Well, anyway, Ben’s out. He’s on vacation. That is the one and only David James who has been so kind to uh stick around here at the top of the 10:00 hour after doing a show on his own all morning. So certainly appreciate you came in early so uh certainly that’s fair play. Oh yeah. Well, we help each other. I I uh I tell people all the time it’s it’s challenging in this job to take a vacation because you can’t just put the automatic email return on and say, you know, be back on Tuesday. uh you have to find somebody to fill in which the pool for that is not big vast you know and so it makes uh and it does it affects people the way people listen you have to be have consistency and and things like that so I’ve always had the approach that whatever I can do to help out uh you know somebody else or another show or whatever I’m going to need that to come back around so karma so it is very nice of you because I know you have a similar view. I do. That’s why I’m here right now. And aren’t you uh Didn’t you tell me you were filling in for Fox 2 last night? Yeah, it’s vacation season. It’s summer time. This is it. It’s kind of how it works. So, you’re you’re super nice. I did hear yours uh segment this morning with Hance. And I did not hear the story on their show about the pizza. Did you hear it off the top, though? I I heard Yes, I heard what you said and I heard what Hance said. And I can’t believe that I am going to say this, but I’m more with Hance on this issue of eating pizza that’s been out for a while than I am with you. And here’s my theory as to why that. Okay, first off, I’m not going to tell you I’ve never eaten food that’s been left out for a while. And my wife could give you specific stories cuz she’s super careful with that kind of stuff. And I’m like, “Ah, it’ll be fine.” I don’t leave stuff on the ground. Uh yeah, the ground was a little rough. Okay. They only had stuff on the ground for hours. Hans and Scott got deep dish pizza. They had leftovers. They were going somewhere. They couldn’t uh take it in the building. They left it outside on the ground for several hours. You know, it’s Vegas and I have gravel cuz they don’t have the lawn cuz it’s so hot and it’s there and there probably no bugs cuz the bugs get barbecued by the heat. So, I get that there’s some contributing factors, but nonetheless, and they ate it later. And then they carried around to the show or to the casino or to the whatever. And it was hours before I got him into a fridge. And I thought to myself, you know, that’s a guy who uh did not uh work a a hungry afternoon producer shift when that pizza’s been sitting out Yeah. since 10:00 a.m. But you know what? It’s it’s 5:30 p.m. now and I’m going to eat that thing cuz again, I’ve taken chances. I’ve taken chances. I’ve done that a lot. And but I thought that was an extreme story. And anybody who knows like how it works around radio clusters, there’s always a table. There’s there’s always a table somewhere that collects food that has been brought in for a variety of different reasons. Having worked at multiple TV stations, I can tell you it’s the same way there. And sometimes the free food and if it’s there, it’s fair game. And sometimes it gets creamed and sometimes it sits out for maybe weeks like not weeks. I mean, for an extreme Definitely been day old donuts and bagels out long time. And I have had that moment where it’s like I’m eating that thing. Hasn’t it been out since Tuesday? I don’t care. I’m eating that thing now. It I don’t know if Hance really needed to eat it at 2 o’clock in the morning. I don’t I don’t think that was probably Hans knows how to tell a story, too. Oh, you don’t say. I do say I do say he’s he’s a gifted storyteller. We’ll just leave it at that. Yeah, he he can spin a yarn that Hans also exactly to in the morning sets an alarm to get up and eat uh eat pizza. Um uh well anyway, I appreciate you sitting sticking around, David. And I was listening this morning and Hance was very good. You can grab that uh podcast. You guys uh you guys talked a lot of uh football, but I want to talk NBA with you. I’ve got Eric uh Eric Pinkis coming up uh at the top of the 11:00 hour and he writes for Bleacher Report, but he’s a national guy, so we might hit some uh you know, some broad topics, but I’m certainly curious to get his take on the Jazz. And I I was kind of thinking of, you know, which direction to go to like you know what hot like uh radio cliche like, “Hey, Eric, rate the Jazz off season.” But it’s kind of what I’m getting at. I you know, how how has the Jazz off season gone? I mean, the goal of winning a title is still uh, you know, hardly worth talking about. Yeah. I mean, that’s so far away. So, so very far away. It’s far away on the old timeline and it’s far away looking at the Jazz roster. I mean, there is a universe where it is possible to miss the to miss the playoffs three years in a row and then win the title two years later. I Oklahoma City just did it, but the Jazz do not appear to be on that timeline. It seems far away. Yes. Even on even in the new modern world, it’s far away. Certainly far away has made a lot of good moves, but they still haven’t gotten back to the playoffs yet. And and there’s there seems to be a lot of momentum in San Antonio. There seems to be a lot of, you know, positive people around the league analyzing what they’re doing. There’s a lot of positives. Uh but nonetheless, they got a long streak and not going to the playoffs. Here’s why I kind of side on really good off season and m it’s it’s all the optimism with Ace Bailey and then moving off bad contracts. They had to I mean they had to get off the veterans that I mean I’ve had this discussion with you that it took forever. I don’t know you can give an A for the offseason doing something that doesn’t everybody wish that was done a year or two ago? Well, they didn’t do it a year or two ago. I know. But but shouldn’t Clarkson have been moved two years ago? Uh in theory. Yeah. I don’t think I think they’re all the same thing. I think Clarkson could have could have would have should have been moved two years ago. Uh get a second round pick. Don’t hold out for a first round pick. Whatever. Just get on with it. Right. Nick Collins coming in. Okay. You’re basically going to rehab his career and then flip him, right? You get a distressed asset, you build it up. It’s like flipping a house after you’ve uh painted it and put a new driveway and put a new roof in, right? And he was like he was in a much better place really shooting. And there should have been a market for him, but given the way the CBA works, there wasn’t. So, they misjudged the market there, which isn’t great, but given the fact the rules just changed, I get how it happened, but I don’t like it. Do you watch South Park, David? I do not, actually. Uh, you are aware of what that that show was aware. Yeah. A little zany, but there there’s one particular episode where they It’s a zany cartoon where they introduce a superhero. Mhm. And the superhero’s name is Captain Hindsight. And they they go to all these disasters, right? You know, things happening event, you know, aliens uh attacking the world or whatever. And everybody’s like, “Oh, we need Captain Hindsight.” and he lands and he’s like, “Well, you should have done this and you should have done this and you should have done this and we’ll see you later.” And it’s like, I think you need captain in hindsight to see John Collins. I don’t think any captain But no, hold on. My point is, my point is though, they did it. They didn’t do it two years ago. They didn’t do it last year. They did it this year. That’s a good thing. They had to do it. And maybe they didn’t get Max’s return, but you you know what? John Collins isn’t helping you win games because he’s not part of the future and he’s not on the team. So that’s the idea and they did at least get something back for him realizing they didn’t for others. But it is what it is as uh an old boss of mine used to say. But at least they did it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I suppose so. I don’t see I don’t disagree with you. I I don’t like they they bet on a market. We talked about this the other day. They bet on a market that wasn’t there for a couple of reasons. Because the new CBA kicks in, but the TV money hasn’t. So now all of a sudden is extraordinarily punitive to take on salary really at all in any way, shape or form. And it froze up the market on mid-level players. Yep. Because young players on on rookie deals still have value because they don’t make any money. And stars still have value because they’re stars and you’ll still have owners who will bend over backwards to get them on the roster. guys like John Collins, all of a sudden there wasn’t a market. Cuz in theory, the acquire him, polish it up, teach him how to shoot, or not teach him how to shoot that. I don’t mean to be condescending and that that isn’t the case, but but really up his numbers in his uh production. And man, yeah, he’s a he’s a modern NBA player. He’s versatile. He’s athletic. He’s he’s long. He’s skilled. There should be a market for that guy. there’s not because he’s in this range of salary that is just not does not fit the puzzle for other teams. And so they misread they misread the tea leaves. They would not be the first team to to do something like that. Oh, I mean the the crazy example was the last time they got a new TV deal and they put it into the salary cap in just two years instead of smoothing it out, which they’re doing this time where they’re going to spread it out. And do you remember teams just went bananas? Yeah, that’s why Kevin Durant went to the Warriors. But well, not Kevin Durant who who actually made a not greedy move and made a I guess you could argue a basketball. But who were the guys? Do you remember all the Boz that signed these just giant might as well just lit that money on fire and throw it out the window? Talk about misreading what the impact was going to be, right? And then these players end up being an albatross for you know half a decade around the neck of these franchises and they you know who who were a couple of examples. I mean Gordon Hayward kind of was honestly but uh what like Nick Batum signed a giant um Chandler Parsons. Does that sound right? Yes. Yeah. These mediocre players that signed these crazy deals and ended up really hampering franchises. I mean, franchises misread what the cause and effect of of things are going to be and the tightening of the screws on the luxury tax with the second apron and all that minutia is having an impact for sure. And if if you would tell me that the Jazz did not read that tea leaf correctly, I I would agree with that assessment. But what are you going to do about it now? Wor the worst thing they could do is roll the dice that the value was going to go up and sit on them for another year. So that would have uh that would have cost him a top eight pick in the draft. Maybe I’m not as worried about the draft. You know, lottery and all the luck of the draw and all that. It’s just not having John Collins on the team is not. You’re pumped. They got Ace Bailey at five and he’s a young guy and he’s going to grow and he has superstar potential. Is supposed to be better and deeper and maybe maybe it will be, maybe it won’t be, but they can’t get shot. No, I’m not saying be good. I’m saying stop stop sweating every win and loss for one slot of lottery luck or the other. You have it or you don’t. Yeah. Oh, because you convey it. I understand. That’s what I was getting. No, no, no. I understand. No. And that’s a Yeah. Uh, valid point. And I actually think they could, depending on how it goes, be good enough to kind of threaten that a little bit. Honestly, depends what everybody else does. Like Cody Williams played really well in summer league. How many games can they win when teams aren’t running out their best? Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? And the back third of the schedule is wild. And if you’re trying, you can pick up a lot of W’s. Exactly. Yeah. And then if you get unlucky with the slots also, how far how far do you fall? And honestly, you saw how what how hard it was to lose that many games last year. How difficult that was. You worked at it. How how honestly I could I mean you have them too but I could tell you anecdotes about little subtle ways that they fixed ball games basically not I should say fix most exciting part of a game day was seeing the list of who was going to play and who wasn’t which for honestly that was like the newsiest thing and and it all comes back to me uh all the time but for a pregame show host that is the most frustrating thing in the world. You have no clue. I mean, you’re sitting down a show, you’re picking out topics that are going to be relevant to the game, and all of a sudden, you know, I built half a segment around this player who played well that game, and then J in our ear is like, so and so’s out. Hey, just so you know, Larry Mark is not play. Wait, wait, what? What? Okay, well, let’s wad that up and throw in the trash and we’ll figure out. Uh, but that’s honestly how much of that is modern NBA, too. But I mean, it just now it just happens with all teams all the time. It’s pro sports. We had the bites this morning where Cincinnati and uh Dallas owners, the Bengals and the Cowboys were complaining about uh injuries and having to pay guys who weren’t playing, all that. And like we’ll go find a baseballer and talk about pitchers on any given day. Look at how many pitchers are on the injured list. How many pitchers in any season? And we’ll get to the end of the year and like how many people had Tommy John surgery this year, right? Starting pitchers used to be celebrities and now they’re super careful with them. Nobody’s pitching into the eighth inning. They’re not doing that. And it used to be you go to the ballpark and you see the starter and the starter is a big deal and the starter sold tickets and now they’re protecting their arms and it doesn’t work and basketball players over here shredding Achilles left and right. I think we’re pushing the human body about as far as it can go. You can strengthen the muscles and the bones, but we haven’t figured out the ligaments yet. Yeah, I I think so. Laments in a pitching arm. Achilles. I mean, and modern Americans are super super soft. Just soft pudding soft. I don’t know that these athletes are soft. You got You got different athletes. I’m kidding. I’m No, I’m just making a joke. Uh I I No, I do think the uh I do think the mentality has shifted. Protect the protect the asset. Definitely supposed to push through. And they have more power and leverage to do it. For example, uh Ron Boon played how many games in a row? I’d set that. But he wouldn’t have played if he tore his Achilles. No, he wouldn’t have. But my point more is Ron probably played through injuries they would sit for today. Injuries a lot. And you know why he did it? Because if people didn’t come through that door, there wasn’t going to be a league tomorrow, right? And the owners had all of the leverage. They would tell I mean getting to your I’m I’m complaining about paying hurt players owners. I mean that mentality is goes back like well if you’re not going to play Ron um here’s an application at Ace Hardware because that’s your other option because this hasn’t made it yet and it’s there’s no TV money and it’s allgate and it’s all you know you talk about you play for the love of the fans back in the day it was fans would just spend money on something else if Jerry West wasn’t playing and they felt burned by I mean it was just a different world now the money doesn’t come from the gate. The money is crazy huge. And the players through a a series of labor victories have a ton of leverage. A ton of leverage. And if you don’t like Kawhi Leonard sitting out all those games, well, he’ll just go play somewhere else. He’s done it before. It’s the wild popularity of the sport because yes, the players have a ton of leverage and through CBA deals and yet arguably they’ve gotten well really not arguably they’ve gotten rolled back in the last couple of deals. Yeah, Derek Fischer sold him out and he should be much money. Yeah, everybody is a wash in it. They have won they they won even when they got basically the salary cap in the late 90s. There were other concessions from a Barri standpoint where they were making more than 50%. Mhm. And they got creamed in the last lockout. And did they? I mean, they did, but they didn’t. I mean, they’re still Yeah, the power’s on, David. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about The money is still getting bigger. It’s not getting bigger as quickly as it could have. I get that. It could be accelerating more quickly and all of that. But if that’s the definition of getting crushed, sign me up. But that’s all the the owner’s argument is, oh, you’re still doing great and you’re still and this is everybody is. There’s no losers in pro sports. And this is what you know, the owner’s opinion is what is going to grow the sport. and and some of that may be true, but if the owners had their way, they’d be making 99% of the of the the Barri in basketball. Are you old enough to remember when owners actually ran out of money and had to sell teams because they were bankrupt? Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. We’re not hearing that anymore, are we, Jake? No, we’re not. We’re all We’re past that. Well, players would say that’s because of them. Owners would say that’s because of me. So, where do you meet? And it used to be so lopsided for the owners somewhere around 53 or 49%. As it turns out, that’s where you That’s right. And they had to fight for and they used to have 50. Was it 50? As five as high as 53. Now it’s at like 49. More damaged by labor negotiations. Baseball, football, basketball, hockey. What do you mean damaged? Well, I think baseball was hurt by the overall process. They didn’t play the World Series in ’94. I think hockey was hurt when they wiped out an entire season about a decade later. Yeah. But look at football took some dings. They had two very compromised seasons in the 80s. But hockey got some really interesting reforms. So you say hurt say hurt by the the player the players were hurt by it, but they bounced back. Yeah. I mean look at some of these stars who were making just they’re making like seven million bucks. Yeah. And these really great players. you look at the the salary range for NHL players and it’s like which which 7 million bucks sounds like very little compared to uh you know whatever the biggest b whatever uh you know the biggest baseball contract is Trout gets it Harper gets it you know it’s everybody gets Sodto gets paid I mean it’s one guy after another getting paid more and more show hey uh but 7 million you can’t just so who’s damaged though that’s why I’m saying the players the sport oh in the short run it was damaged and the players yeah and the sport was hurt. Um, yeah, but baseball, but over time they they grow out of it and their revenue grows again and you know, I mean, we’re generation down the road. But baseball baseball is funny because could the sport of baseball if the owners had more, you know, self-control or or more of a hard cap or or something like that? Would the sport be more successful? because baseball has gone from number one in the sports lexicon to arguably three, four. Well, I think two. Um, I think the NBA’s pushing there’s there’s a um, you know, there’s some dynamics that are unique to each sport that shape how they make money. You know, the fact that you can only play one NFL a game a week, you can basically broadcast a lot of these games nationally. Whereas basketball, you’re playing three or four times a week. So they set up these TV contracts with double headers seven nights of the week and sell them off to two and now three different providers to make big money. Baseball, there just isn’t the appetite for the national. And I don’t think it’s because people don’t care and don’t want to watch. I think it’s because your local team is playing every night. They’re playing six days out of seven and you’re watching them. So, you don’t have time to watch whatever the equivalent would be of the TNT Thursday Night Package or Monday Night Football. That doesn’t really exist in baseball. But if you’re watching the Yankees or the Dodgers or, you know, the Padres’s or the Tigers or, I don’t know, whoever, six days a week, you don’t how much more time do you have? Uh, baseball sucks on TV, which is uh makes it really hard. But but here’s where baseball why they just print money is because there is no more lucrative gate in sports than baseball. They play a zillion home games. They play in stadiums that are huge and they sell a bunch of tickets whether they’re good or not because it’s an experience and an event. So it depends on the team. There’s baseball value. Not every team does. That is baseball’s value. That actually scares some people because they don’t, you know, the Jazz can rebuild and their gates great, but they’re getting so much money from the national TV that they’re set. It really can’t go wrong. It’s it’s it’s foolproof. But and baseball doesn’t have that because there are stadiums you look around and hello, hello. You know, it’s true. And I’m not saying, you know, it’s always the case, but with baseball, you’ve got you got a little bit of this in football, too. And some in basketball, but I would say less. It’s the event, you know, I’ll go see. I don’t care if I’m in San Diego and the Padres are in town. I don’t know where they’re sitting in the standings. I don’t care. I’m just How many players can you name? Yeah. Right. I’m But you know what I’m going to do? It’s a game. It’s an event. Going to park my butt on the first baseline. Is it really that different than going to a concert? No, it’s not. You go to some concerts where you know every lyric of every song and other concerts where like I’ve heard of them and I know two songs and I’ll go. It’s summer and I’m outside and it’s beautiful and I’ve got hot dogs and malted beverages and you know I went out to the Bees game a couple Sundays ago. Like the food is really good nowadays. They pour a lot of effort into the game experience. That has nothing to do with how good the team is or is not. And like I said, there is some of that in in all sports, but I think it’s really prevalent specifically in Major League Baseball. Yeah. I mean, if you go to a market, David, you used to travel so much. I mean, if you go to a market and the team’s in town, there’s a good chance David James is bouncing over to that stadium to catch a game. Went to the Nationals game and it got rained out on me. Bummer. I was right there. But that’s how I got Fenway Park checked off the list is I was there. I was there for a soccer game. We went to four of us got tickets and we were out in right field. By the way, I thought it’d be more hardcore baseball fans. I thought I was going to see a lot of people keeping score and all that. And at Fenway, they got the big jumbotron and they sing every half inning. Tons of college students in a town with I don’t even know how many universities, right? And they’re they’re all out and just it was crazy. It was not what I expected. But the gate is magic for baseball. That’s the thing. In some cities, in other cities, it is not. And in the case of the old Dodgers owner parking for baseball games, uh, McCort kept the sweetest plum for himself. There it is. Take that, Major League Baseball. Thank you. I know you’ve got a thing and I’ve kept you a long time. Appreciate it, David. Have a great day. We’ll have more coming up next. Top three stories. Jake and Ben 975 DKSL Sports Zone. This is This is DJ and PK. Joined now by Brian Gueltzer, SiriusXM NBA radio host. I find Ace Bailey to be a fascinating story on multiple levels. So, how high is this ceiling? I think when you look at what Danny’s trying to do to create the right atmosphere for Bailey, you want Bailey to develop, that ball’s got to be in his hands a lot. And they brought in Walter Clayton Jr. to be, for lack of a better term, even though he’s a young guy, the adult in the room, an experienced college player. And they cleared the decks for these younger players to be able to come in and play big roles early on. The Angels are going to do a really good job with this. They just are. It was the right pick for the Jazz. I love it. I thought the Jazz were one of the big winners on draft night and may take a couple of years to marinate to get there. I mean, you just kind of have to wait and see how all this plays out. Catch DJ and PK mornings from 6:00 to 10 on 975, the KSL Sports Zone.
David James joins Jake for the first segment to talk about the Jazz’s offseason moves & also player unions.
