PROJECTING – What to EXPECT from Ace Bailey | Can ALL-STAR Lauri Markkanen return in #ASKLOJ

PROJECTING – What to EXPECT from Ace Bailey | Can ALL-STAR Lauri Markkanen return in #ASKLOJ

It’s an Ask LJ edition on Locked on Jazz. What should we expect from Ace Bailey? Would the front office do it again? Lowry marketing. Which version amongst the lead questions on a big day on locked on? Jazzum. You are locked on jazz. Your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. How I am David Lock, radio voice of the Utah Jazz. Jazz NBA insider. This is Locked on Jazz, your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz, giving you insight, expertise, geeky numbers, and ultimately making it way better to be a Jazz fan each and every day. Thank you so much for making Locked on Jazz your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all podcasting apps as well as on YouTube. Thank you so much for making Locked on Jazz your first listen of the day. And to the everydayers, you’re the best. Two notes before we dive into your fabulous questions today. The first is that I uh this is my last show till September. I’m going to take August off. Um my little sbatical leaf to lean does great work. So we’re going to give him the show for the month of August and I’ll come back re-energized and ready to go in September for and then we’ll be about we’ll have Euro Basket and we’ll be ready to roll uh getting ready summer for camp and a bunch of guys will be in town. So that’s that’s the first one for you. Second one, Jazz put out a remembering Frank Leaden piece on YouTube and it’s outstanding. Craig and Thor host it and then they talk to Ron Boon and Daryl Griffith and they go back through some old stories and they find an old Holly Row interview with Frank. It’s really super. So if you get a chance, it’s on their YouTube channel. It’s probably on uh SCG Plus as well. Go grab the remembering Franklidden piece. Um, it’s it is really really well done. Today’s show is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use the code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. All right, are we ready? Very good questions today. But we start with Ace Bailey because that’s where everybody wants to start. What are we looking for in the upcoming season from Ace? And what would you view as successful to make us believe he can be the guy? Stats, field, defense, player comp, anything really. So, from a stats standpoint, I expect he’ll probably not have a particularly good year. If you go back and look at some of the best offensive players to ever play the game and kind of go to them at similar stages in their career, Tracy McGrady was like a 23% three-point shooter and was like a 44% shooter, which was actually pretty good and barely played. And then Kevin Durant, who I actually think is probably the best comp to kind of the situation. Durant was uh ended up playing 80 games and 35 minutes a night as a 19-year-old on a Seattle the last Seattle SuperSonic team that was not good. And while Durant won rookie of the year, he shot 43% and 29% from three. He averaged 20 points a game. That obviously would be a fabulous year. So, the first thing I would say is I would suspect that you’ll see a very low shooting percentage. And then the second thing is that Ace Bailey has to learn shot selection, having had really bad shot selection in college, and he’ll still have it’s not going to just go away. So, he’s going to have to learn that. Um, which I think will lead him to have having even worse shooting um percentages along in that way. I mean, if you look back at that 0708 Seattle SuperSonic team, Durant has Earl Watson plays the second most amount of minutes on that team and then Nick Collison, then Jeff Green, then Chris Wilcox, Kurt Thomas, Damen Wilkins. That’s a bad team. Um, and that’s kind of what we are. They went 20 and 62 under PJ Carisso. I suspect we’re similar. Now we have Lowry, which will relieve some of that burden, but Seattle really just threw Durant out there. Um, and that’s Oklahoma City now, which seems to be the model. So, we may do the same with Ace Bailey. We may just throw him out there for 30 minutes tonight and make him survive. So, then the second one I would say is I do think flashes matter and periods of time, if he’s going to be the guy, periods of time in which he dominates. Can he dominate for a few plays? Then, can he dominate for a few minutes? Then does he ever have a dominant quarter? Does he ever have a dominant half? Those would be the things I think you’re looking for in that. And the thing that jumped out the most in his summer league play was the way he literally just had such incredible effort the whole time. So, and I don’t know how he’s going to manage an NBA season, but can he play with that same zest and that effort and that tenacity on both sides of the ball? because I thought that was um where he jumped out and his just ability to do things. I think the flashes the flashes in effort would be my first two which is not you know not a great one you’d rather have me tell you um you know there is a chance he goes and averages 20 points a game like we have to score we’re going to score 100 points a night and someone has to average him. If you if you suddenly start down our 10-man roster and start to try to allocate the points and you start with Lowry at 25 and now you try to get the next 75 done and you give Keonte 18, well, Ace Bailey may get there very quickly to be at 17 or 18 points a game because somebody has to score them. Um, so that would be it. I would suspect he shoots about 40%. I’m going to guess he shoots about 32% from three, is wildly inefficient, scores a lot of points, and has a lot of flashes. And that would answer since we didn’t see much. What do you expect his rookie season and what do you think success looks like for him? I think I answered that. How confident are you that the Jazz can keep Ace Bailey around past his rookie contract? So, I understand that Jazz fans with what’s happened in our history, we are very insecure about this. I would just say it’s not decide like Ace Bailey is not coming to Utah deciding I’m only going to be here for X amount of years. Um, and if there’s anything about Ace Bailey that jumped out in his short time in summer league, if you’re around him, it’s just kind of how gregarious and happy he is. It’s not who he seems to be at all. So, you know, there might be people in his camp that think like, “Okay, well, we’ll get out of Utah and then we’ll get our big deal somewhere else.” But I I can promise you that there’s nobody in like there’s nothing about Ace Bailey. It’s prereddecided what’s going to happen here. So, it has to do with what his experience is here, how much he likes it, how much he enjoys it, you know, how he’s how he’s treated, how he succeeds, but it is not predecided in any way, shape, or form at this point. If the Jazz front office knew this is where they’d be three and a half years later after trading Rudy and Donovan, do you think they’d do things the same way? Super interesting question. I wonder two things. We got kind of caught in the middle in the first two years. It’s harder to unload an entire roster than you would think. So, the kind of question goes back to the Russell Westbrook trade that we didn’t make of whether we should have made that in the off season and unloaded Mike and Buon and a bunch of players at that point. So, you should really have cleared the entire roster, right? They traded Royce and then they traded Donovan and they traded Rudy and then it took them a while. They did Boyon and then I think he requested that and then they got Mike done after that midway through the season and so it took a little while to get everything done. Would they in retrospect have done that faster? Okay, that would be question one. Um and then obviously Lowry was way better than anyone expected and we were better than anyone expected. Um and Will had everyone playing really really well and so you kind of got caught and then we had that end of the season um draft positioning. Um, and then that leads to the second questions like the second season would you do you wish you had done this early where you had unloaded you acquired John Collins and maybe you didn’t need to and then you you unload some of those pieces like you did this off season to get into that you know kind of clearly clear your direction. So, if we had done those two things differently, which I think are the two things you could have done differently, I don’t know that we’re actually in a totally different situation. Um, the first I mean, you would have less we’d be less good and then the question is whether we would have gotten, you know, far better draft picks is really what you’re saying. And so if we look back in the 2003 draft where we end up with Taylor Hendrickx, Keonte George, and it’s our pick that gets us Taylor Hendrickx. If we had cleared the deck faster and drafted somewhere in there where we had Scoot Henderson, Aman Thompson, Assur Thompson, Anthony Black, Bal Kulavali, or Jarice Walker. Is that that different? I mean obviously you got Victor that’s the Victor draft but so you don’t win the lottery and you’re having either Brandon Miller Scoot Henderson Aman Thompson as Thompson Anthony Black Bal Kali Derice Walker and Taylor Hendricks but you’ve cleared the deck you don’t have you’ve cleared the deck you don’t have Colin Son you have Jordan Clarkson you don’t have John Collins you did all that earlier are we that much further along and then in the two the 2024 draft is the worst draft we may have ever seen So we get Cody at 10. Had we drafted earlier, like if we have Ron Holiday, Dejon Salon, Donovan Klingan, Zack Edy, Rob Dillingham, maybe Stephan Castle, Alex Sar, are we that different? I think we kind of go into this last draft and we end up with Ace Bailey. And I think we’re in a very I think we could have done this in a different route. And we might have better player than Taylor Hendricks. And we might have a better player than Cody Williams in theory by draft position, but I don’t know that we’d be in any different position than what we’re in right now. This is hard. And we went down the road the day we traded Donovan and Rudy. So, um I’m not sure that that’s it. And if we if the question is if we’d known where we were going to be three and a half years later, would have we traded Donovan and Rudy? I think we knew where we were going to be. I think we knew this was going to be hard. What kind of year is Lowry Marketing going to have? That seems to be the top question from a lot of people. It’s next on Locked on Jazz. Today’s edition of Lockdown Jazz is brought to you by Murdoch Hyundai located at 4646 South State Street, also located in Logan and in Lynen. The Murdochs have been in Utah for like a hundred years. They have I I was thinking back on this because they are doing a celebration and there’s two things that jump out to me in my now seven years with the Murdoch. One is the first time I ever met with them and the patriarchal and the patriarchs were there at the table. There were there was grandfather and father and Blake and Ben and I I think I don’t know if Tyson was there. I can’t remember and we were all there. The pride they had in what they were doing for be a part of the community but also the way they treated people and what their car dealerships meant to them. And then the second one was during COVID when um I was with Blake and they everyone else was jacking up prices and the Murdoch didn’t do it and Blake was like I’m just not going to the grocery store or church or somewhere in town being part of the community and seeing people who I got an extra $2,500 from because the world was in a crisis. I’m just not going to do it. So that sums up to me my experience with the Murdoch and um very feel very comfortable and very honored to have been their spokesperson for this long. So, if you’re looking for a car, email me at dlock09gmail.com. That’s dlock09gmail.com. And let us get you set up with a VIP meeting that you deserve by being a locked on every day and get you the car that you want to get out of the market or at least have a look at it and get it set up. So, email me at dlock09gmail.com. Today’s show is also brought to you by Monarch Money. We call it your own personal CFO. I think it can be your own compliment maker. Whether you’re ever wish was easier to manage your money to know more of what’s going on and if that news might be good you can find out you’re growing your savings that you’ve saved enough for your next big purchase it. Monarch Money puts you in the driver’s seat. It’s like having your own personal CFO which gives you visibility and control over your finances. It’s more than a budgeting app. It’s a complete financial command center that can track all of your accounts, investments, and spending in one place. So in addition to managing your money, you can also build wealth. It also can kind of separate this is costing us this. This is costing us that, this is costing us that, rather than, at least that’s my case, kind of guessing on all of it. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money and use the code locked on MBA at monarch money for 50% off your first year. That’s monarchmoney.com. Code locked on MBA for 50% off your first year. Continuing with your awesome questions, you guys always do such an amazing job on this. Do you think Lowry has his all-star year or last year? So, that’s interesting. Um, two things on last year. One is I thought the Jazz really tried to turn Lowry into this score isolation post player. Got him banged up. He got bad looks out of it. and he didn’t really get to play off ball like he did with Mike Connley and do all of that those aspects of things that are his strength. We didn’t get him in transition nearly as much. And then Will talked a lot about how much we were asking Lowry to sacrifice, which I think was that we were getting John Collins at the four more and then playing Lowry at the three and also just Lowry wasn’t getting some of the looks because John Collins was getting more. So there’s two things. I don’t think we’re asking Lowry to sacrifice that same way because there’s not John Collins around. So that’s the positive. The negative is that Lowry really did benefit from having Mike Connley, right? Like there’s something to that um in Lowry’s first year with us when he was so great is that Mike Conley was the point guard getting him the ball. And since then, we really haven’t had a particularly good point guard getting him the ball. um that post all-star break, if you go to pre-allar break with Mike Connley, Lowry shoots 51% from the floor, 41% from three, and 88% from the free throw line. In the second half of that season, he shoots 45%. He only plays 12 games, but 45 He does average 29 points doing this. 45 points and 32% three-point shooting. That’s suddenly the roster has been cleared and he has to make more plays than he has than he had before. and his efficiency drops, his points per game increase and he becomes um you know he’s able to do more and then the last two years his efficiency the middle year his efficiency was kind of fine and last year it dropped to very similar to that second half of that season. So I don’t I think he’ll have big numbers. I think I don’t know how are we still going to try to pound him into an isolation one-on-one player that just seems like a round peg into a square hole. Um or it’s a square, whichever does. I don’t know if it matters. Um but I don’t I mean we don’t have a lot of other scoring options. So when a play gets late into a possession, I think it is going to have to be Lowry ISO and he’s just not very good at that. Um and I do think he’s really hurt by having a lack of a punker. So Lowry is a player that plays off of people and doesn’t create himself and so his teammates are going to dictate a little bit of what kind of season he has. What is your prediction on Lowry’s future? The Jazz will be around when they’re finally competitive. Yes, I am certain that Lowry I I feel very comfortable Lowry will be on this roster when the Jazz play their next playoff game. Um I think one the salary floor is real. You got to pay somebody. Two, he’s on board and understands what’s going on. three, he’s awesome, like as a human and as a player. And you’ve got to have somebody on your roster that’s pretty good so that as you begin to build this thing up, if Ace Bailey hits and our next guy hits that, then when you’re starting to bring people in, there’s some foundational pieces. And so he’s that piece. So yes, I believe he I believe Lowry will be on the roster. Interesting question here. If it’s no longer needed to have a top 10, a top 20, a top 50 player to win a ring, doesn’t the value of players 11 through 50 drop? Teams can’t afford to a max guy that isn’t good enough to be top 10. But so you’re going to pay max contracts to players that are not top 10. That’s just the reality of the game because you’re every team’s gonna maxing somebody out. They’re gonna be 30 max players. Um, but this is an interesting question of like how does used to pay for your big three and if our belief now is that you’re going to need a top 10 player like Jaylen and Tyresese Hallebertton and Donovan maybe and uh Shay and right um and Anthony Edwards that you are then the importance is depth after that and having players who can play minutes. Maybe you’re right. Maybe the 40th best player in the league gets a little less money than he used to get. And maybe even the 25th and not everyone maxes somebody out gets a little less because you’re trying to build with your depth. It’s an interesting thought um of whether we start seeing salaries slotted differently than what we’ve seen before. That’s I have not thought about that. That one’s That one’s good. I love this question. If you were to buy a jersey of one or of our young guys, whose jersey would it be? So, the obvious answer is Ace because he’s just got such talent. He’s got this kind of aura to him. I think people are going to really like Walter Clayton Jr. I think he’s a kind of a a fighter and a winner and um I think you you’re going to see him he’s going to do things you like and battle and you’ll feel good wearing his jersey. Um, Taylor’s delightful. We just don’t know him very well yet and he’s quiet. Isaiah Collier’s got a pizzazz to him if you’re going to buy a jersey there. Um, Cody, you could jump on it now and you’re kind of ahead of the game like I had my Cody Williams jersey back when. Um, I think people are going to buy Ace. Bryce sense about dead eyee shooter. You’re kind of I’m a dieh hard. I got Bryce. Ace is your best long-term bet to have a not have to buy another jersey. That’s be what I would tell you on that. Um, is one of the biggest advantages to a rookie is the control if one of the biggest advantages to a rookie is cost controlled contract. When will the league make the shift value older rookies more? Wouldn’t it be more valuable to have a rookie come in? And the implic uh I cut off the question, but the con the concept of this question is that if you’re older rookies are more ready to play. Somewhat true, somewhat not true. So I think the premise sounds right. I’m not sure that’s totally true over the years. I think later draft picks sometimes are older are better um and they can perform. There’s also a limit to what they usually who that player is because it’s a later draft pick and because they’re older and they’re not developing as much. Um, I actually don’t think the league’s wrong on this issue. Like I just I know it’s like for whatever reason it’s gotten people’s and like Craig I know is always bothered by it. Like oh why don’t you’re just not too old. Like there is something that like Ace Bailey’s 19 and going to develop and there is something that the best players and the youngest players are ready to play and they play. Uh the Thompson kids are pretty ready to play when they were 18 19. the older players usually do not develop as much and many of them don’t pan out. Actually, we kind of hear the want the ones that do. So, I think the premise of the question while a popular opinion may not be totally accurate. Um, having rookies that can contribute early under cost control will be more important than ever before and I think will be vital to have the Christian Brown types in Denver who are able to play 2530 minutes early at on a rookie contract and that will help you settle your entire salary cap situation. 100%. I agree with you on that. Will Hardy’s coaching comes under question next on Locked on Chess. Today’s show is brought to you in part by game time. Did you use game time to go to the Lumers last night? We did. I didn’t go. The kids did. Uh, whatever it is, whether it’s concert tickets to go on sale, whether you’re see some of your dying to see, live music should be about making memories and game time is here for you. That’s where Game Time comes in. Game time makes the concert tickets faster and easier than ever. Prices actually drop as it gets closer to Showtime. And you can save up to 60% off with the killer lastminute deals. Jake Scott tonight maybe last minute deal. Tire of endless scrolling trying to find the best deals. Game time zone deals pick up the seats in your section for you. Ever wonder what your view will actually look like? The app shows it to you. Panoramic seat view. Game time. The price you see is a price you get. No hidden fees. So worried about what happens if the plans change? Game time guaranteed has your back with cancellation protection and more. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets. Show tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app. Create an account. Use the code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Create an account. Redeem the code locked on NBA for $20 off. Download the Game Time app today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Ask LoJ Edition has been nails today. You guys are always great at this. And some good highlevel questions of people who clearly listen to the show. I always appreciate that. Does Will Hardy’s system have a lot of ISO ball? Seems like guys play a lot of hero ball, take a lot of bad shots, or Matt, does the data back that up? So, we increased the amount of isolation that we played midway through last year. Will kind of integrated it into the offense on a on a certain call and play where if things happened um and things developed in a certain way, there was a call that was made that was like, “Yeah, go go go play isolation.” I think this was a little bit of a development thing like let’s see who’s got what here and who’s able to play Isolation overall. It actually was really successful early and then my memory is it got less successful as time went on um for the season for overall per 100 possessions the Jazz rank 18th in isolation uh amount of isolation possession. So, we don’t run more isolation than anyone else. And actually, we’re 23rd in the league in isolation per chance. So, we’re actually not um we’re not actually like we’re not bad at it or really good at it. In Will Hardy’s three years as our head coach, which is right, it’s not right. Um we rank overall the Clippers in Dallas were number one and two in the league. We rank 19th. We’re right kind of there in what we do in isolation. We’re 19th in efficiency as well, I think. Um, is what I remember. Actually, I take that back. We are 20th in efficiency. Um, is that right? I think that’s right. Um, Dallas and Boston best. No, we’re 19th. So, we’re 19th overall. So, no, we don’t run a lot of isolation. We’re not particularly bad at it, actually. Um, we did have a stretch last year where Will very consciously um, post all-star break is my memory he he tried to integrate it into the offense a little bit more to try to get guys to be willing to do it. We were having I think a little bit of problem where we were overpassing late into possessions if I remember correctly and he kind of wanted to say hey you know what like let’s if if you have a matchup or we call it from the there was a play I can’t remember what the um what the call was um there was some call and it would come from the bench you’d hear it and that player was kind of a signal to that player that like if you want to go you should go. Um, but by the way, just I looked it up as we were just talking right now to um to back this up is that um I looked post all-star break or post February 15th and guess what? We were 19th in the league in the amount of isolations that we played. So literally we did not change anything. We were 26th in the league in efficiency. Um as it just didn’t it didn’t work as well as the time went on. What evidence is there that Will Hardy is actually a good head coach when the Jazz are ready to win? It seems like the extended coach based on speculation, the absence of data. I mean, the data of wins and losses, there’s definitely an absence. Um, and the defensive numbers have not been good. I’d only say there’s one thing that Will Hardy like and I would guess he would agree with it has to be fixed and that we’re on the wrong side of the turnover game. We’re lead the league in turnovers and we’re last in the league in forcing turnovers when that seems to be a rising thing in the league. But if you look at Will Hardy’s coaching, you’ve seen incredible communication skills with his players. So that’s probably one and probably the most important skill. You’ve seen incredible EQ um emotional intelligence um or that around how to manage a team, get through a season, navigate. These have been really hard seasons. He’s done an incredible job with that. Uh I think you’ve seen very creative play calling. And then the one I jump out to is in each of the last three years the team’s kind of come out playing with one style and he’s able to adapt particularly offensively early in that season to change what we’re doing with and and see what’s working not and we get much better much much better offensively almost immediately in each of the last few seasons which are really good signs. I think when you think about basketball IQ, you think about emotional intelligence in involving interactions with his players and his team and navigating a season, communication with his players. I think he gets really high regards in all of those things. And then, you know, he hasn’t really had a roster. He hasn’t, it’s not like we’ve underperformed um from a wins loss standpoint. That’s the roster he’s been given. So, it’s hard to give him that blame. And then statistically the only thing I would say is the turnover issue is that we just turn it over too much which is a young team but we also don’t force any turnovers. So I think you’ll see us try to adjust and get that on that. Uh listener question. My biggest concern with Isaiah Collier is he has not improved. Worst turnovers in the league. The only point guard who shot under 50% from the line. If he has the ability he should be able to improve. I’m confused. Wait, when was he supposed to He was a rookie last year, right? Oh, we’re not using five games of summer league as a as a value judgment of whether he’s improved or not. Please, no. No, no. Summer League is not real. Summer League is the greatest marketing thing in the world. But like, this is unfair. Like, this is unfair. He we can’t be judging him on six summer league games and and also expect him to suddenly shoot dramatically differently. We’ll see if he improves during the season and some of these improvements are going to take years, but that’s not fair at all. Regarding Kee, is there a history of a player going from zero percentile defensively to becoming league average? That’s a great question and I don’t have any idea and I don’t know how we would know that. We’d have to go through Taylor Schnar’s dunks and threes defensive ratings for an extended period of time and try to figure out. I don’t know. I I think you just look at his body and his skill set and say he should be an average defense player. That’s the way I look at it. What are the Jazz plans with the two vets we recently acquired? How much in payroll do we need to get the minimum floor? The two vets we recently acquired would be Kyle Anderson and whom is that who it is? Did I miss somebody? Well, Kevin Love, I think we’re going to release. Who else did we acquire? Yousef Nerkage. Ysef Nerkage could play. I don’t know what position they think Kyle Filipowski is. So, Ysef Nerkage could play. Um, and I think Kyle Anderson is going to be our Patty Mills this year. Incredibly valuable, insightful, thoughtful, smart, and when our my conversation yesterday, when the point guards go ary, I think he comes in to to run the team well. Final word of the day. Best guess as to who is a bottom five team and a top five team next year in the NBA. Do I think the Indiana Boston interviews? Yes. So, the number one team in the NBA next year is Oklahoma City. The number two team in the NBA next year is Denver. The number three team in the NBA next year is Minnesota. The number four team in the NBA next year is the Rockets. The number five team in the NBA next year might be the Clippers. They might all be West Coast teams. Probably Cleveland deserves to be in that group considering they won 60 games last year. Brought back basically the team. Brought Loronzo ball. But yeah, they all might be West. The bottom Jazz Washington Charlotte. I don’t think the bottom’s changing at all. Brooklyn. Oh, I think the Pelicans, but they, you know, Pelicans could be awful. Yeah, I go with that. Pelicans, I mean, if Zion plays, they’re good, but like Jordan Pool is not good. Um, and I don’t think Sadique Bay does anything for you. So yeah, I think the bottom four are at least the same as a year ago. That is Locked on Jazz. Leave too lean takes you for the next month. I will see you in September. You’re the best. I will miss you. You are awesome. Thank you so much for being a part of Locked on Jazz. We’re making the Locked On podcast network what it is. I honestly have like a little bit of me that misses you and will miss talking to you and being a part of it. So sorry. Um but schedule will come out. So I might stop by and do a little quick thing about the schedule or something of that nature. You never know. I might pop in. Have a great one. Thanks so much. You guys are the best. It is locked on Jazz. Now we send you the first ever national 247 NBA channel locked on NBA. But check out Locked on NBA nightly with locked in NBA.

David Locke, radio voice of the Utah Jazz and Jazz NBA Insider, tackles fan questions in this Ask LOJ edition. He explores expectations for rookie Ace Bailey, predicting flashes of dominance and high-effort play despite likely inefficient shooting. Locke analyzes Lauri Markkanen’s potential for another All-Star caliber season, considering the impact of roster changes and point guard play on his performance.

The episode dives into Will Hardy’s coaching system, debunking misconceptions about isolation plays and highlighting his strengths in communication and adaptability. Locke addresses concerns about Keyonte George’s development and discusses the Jazz’s plans for veterans like Yusuf Nurkic. He concludes with predictions for the NBA’s top and bottom teams next season, suggesting a Western Conference dominance at the top of the standings.

0:00 Intro: Ask LOJ edition of Locked On Jazz
5:39 Expectations for Ace Bailey’s rookie season
17:51 Changing value of non-top 10 NBA players
26:36 Evaluating Will Hardy’s coaching performance
30:43 Predictions for top and bottom NBA teams

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FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)