Jazz Acquire Georges Niang, Lauri Markkanen Explodes In EuroBasket

Jazz Acquire Georges Niang, Lauri Markkanen Explodes In EuroBasket

[Music] Welcome into the Jazz Notes podcast. I’m your host, Ben Anderson, recording this on August 11th. Uh, just me solo today. Chandler is still out this week. He will be back with us again next week, I believe. Uh, but we will start with some jazz news as always, then get to your mailbag to close the show. If you want to interact with the mailbag, you can find me on Twitter or Blue Skyben Hoops or read me at kslports.com. Or as always, you can just DM me when uh when you feel like it. Either on uh Twitter’s probably the best way to do it. I’ll see it most likely. I do get some on Instagram occasionally, which is fine as well. Benshoops there if you want to interact, uh with the show that way. You certainly can. But, uh responding to my prompt on Twitter is the best way to do it. Uh again, Ben Hoops on Twitter or Blue Sky. I’ll send it out at about 11 every Monday and uh take your responses. But let’s start with some jazz news quickly. Uh the big trade yesterday or last week which is surprising kind of came out of nowhere. Jazz using part of that traded player exception to land George Niang for the Boston Celtics. Jazz also get two second round picks and they send RJ Lewis to uh to the uh to the Celtics. Now you know this is kind of obviously this was this was a surprise. A the Jazz signed R.J. Lewis on draft night after he went undrafted. And if you don’t remember, we talked about this story a little bit. R.J. Lewis was the only underassman, meaning he still had college eligibility left who skipped college eligibility to enter the NBA draft and go undrafted. And in the past, that wasn’t that unique. It was always a bad sign, but it wasn’t that unique. If a guy said, “Well, my only chance to make money is to go to the NBA. Even if I’m an undrafted free agent or I’m a two-way player, that’s worth it for me.” R.J. Lewis would have been one of the top players in college basketball last year returning to school and probably would have been looking at one or two million dollars in NIL deals at least. And he skips that, goes to the NBA, goes undrafted, gets a two-way contract with the Jazz. Two-way contracts are like a half million dollars. It’s just, you know, it’s a lot of money for a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old, but it’s not that much money compared to what he would have been making otherwise. And, you know, you’re playing in the G-League. you’re competing for a spot every day you can hoping to do anything and not really getting the opportunity that you would have been, you know, in college playing only 35 games but making so much money. So, uh, Jazz offload RJ Lewis. He never played in summer league. He had the knee injury. They get George Nyang back who, you know, it’s funny since we last saw George Nyang, which I believe was the summer of 2021. He was uh moved out when Rudy Gay came in. It was 2022. uh he doesn’t know anyone on this team anymore. George Niang doesn’t. He knows Justin Xanic who’s still in the front office and everyone else is gone. You know, this the the team that he last played for, certainly all the players are gone. He never played with Walker Kesler, and Walker is the Jazz’s longest tenure uh player right now. So, he doesn’t know any of these guys in the locker room, and I got a question about that in the mailbag, so we’ll we’ll mention it more there. But George, I expect to step in and and you know, I I think he will be in the rotation. I think he’s very steady. I think he provides floor spacing. And one of the things I’ve kind of, you know, hammered repeatedly over the last 12 months is that while, you know, you can have young players and you can have young players play a lot and you want to get them on the floor, I do think you want what they’re doing or the system they’re playing in to resemble NBA basketball. If they’re doing something that looks like summer league or or, you know, is pretty nonsensical, I’m not actually sure how well you can develop. And if you can get other NBA players around them to mimic or actually play an NBA system, I think you might get better growth. And I look, you know, the example here I I might point at and maybe it’s just a coincidence is, you know, Walker Kesler came into a team in 2022 23 that had Lowry Markin and Mike Connley and Kelly Olen and Malik Beasley and Jared Vanderbilt, etc., etc. And like he just kind of played in a true rotation like that they had a legit six or seven guys that were NBA players and Walker had to fill a role inside of that and figure out what he did and what he didn’t do and what he needed to be able to do and what he didn’t have to be able to do and I think it allowed him to develop his game a little bit more quickly. You know, generally rim running bigs step into the league and and are effective more quickly and we’ve seen that across the league. Essi last year, you know, was quite raw coming out of Baylor and goes to New Orleans and has a simplified role and and played pretty well. He was a pretty good player last year and Walker did that his first year and then when they put more on his plate in year two, he struggled and then it wasn’t until year three that he figured it out. But I think it really helped him to be in a system that looked like an NBA system and George Nang helps that. George Niang is a legitimate NBA player. He’s a top 250 player in the world. He’s going to step in. He’s going to shoot threes. He’s going to shoot them at a very high rate. Still elite over 40% on, you know, six, seven attempts a game. That makes Lowry’s life a lot easier. And it just gives guys room to operate. You know, it’s it’s just another guy to to solve a problem that allows, you know, Keante to have a little less on his plate or Isaiah to have a little less on his plate or to give Walker Kesler more room to operate or Bryce or, you know, Cody, etc., etc., down the list. Now, he’ll probably eat into somebody’s minutes a little bit, but when you consider everyone only plays 65 games a year anymore in the NBA, there’s always room to get, you know, 10 or 11 guys, legitimate NBA minutes by the end of the season. And I don’t just mean the last 15 games of the year. I mean throughout the season sprinkled in guys are going to play 60 games and they’re going to play average 25 minutes a game. And if you add that up, it it it’s enough to develop. So, I don’t think George Nang eats into that. And then, uh, the Jazz get two second round picks, which, you know, they gave up a lot of second round picks early in the summer. They’ve moved three on draft night to go from 21 to 18 to draft Walt Clayton Jr. and then they gave up another one to get off of Colin Ston to get Ysef Nurkage back and they have recouped three of the four they have given away. They got two back in this deal from Boston. One’s in 2027. It’s the uh best of the Celtics and Magic second round pick which both of those teams should be good but should be doesn’t mean anything. Uh and it’s still two years down the road. And then the best of the Cavs in the Celtics in 20 in the 2030s. I don’t remember if it’s 2030 or 2031, but it’s out there. So, uh you can find that as as well as a as a positive for the Jazz to get back here. And you ask, what are the values of second round picks? It’s like, well, the Jazz use three to move up from 21 to 18 to get a guy. Moving up three spots in the first round is not, you know, it doesn’t guarantee success, but to only do it for second round picks that you were able to recoup now by taking on George Nyang’s $8 million contract and saving Boston 35 plus million or whatever it is is a is a positive. So, you see the value there for the Jazz and why you want to have some of those second round picks and why they were happy to get that traded player exception. I know that was a a big talking point for fans. What were the Jazz going to do with that? How were they going to view it? Were they going to use it? Was it going to expire? Uh they used it to take on a contract that another team didn’t want to pay to get under the salary or the luxury tax or at least cut into their luxury tax and save a bunch of money and the Jazz gets some more assets for it and then uh because I had I had someone ask last week, you know, does this mean the entire traded player exception is gone? The Jazz got the traded player exception from John Collins. Uh because they were able to take Kevin Love and Kyle Anderson back just into their salary cap space. They actually got a full John Collins salary worth of traded player exception back which was 26.6 million I think in that deal. They used 8.3 or whatever it was that that George Nang makes this year. They used 8.3 of that 26.6 million. So they should still have whatever 17 18 million bucks to uh to use for more of these types of deals or to go out and get a player if they wanted. So uh you can split up traded player exceptions. It’s not just like an IOU where you use it all and you lose it even if the player, you know, makes less than the full max of of what that traded player exception is worth. So, the Jazz still have 17 or 18 million bucks. But, it’s worth noting that George Nang is the 15th guaranteed roster on or or player on this roster, which is as many as you can have on uh opening night. So, I talked about it a little bit last week, but I don’t want to run through all the names, but the Jazz have 15 guaranteed players plus KJ Martin, who’s non-G guaranteed throughout the season, basically until January, if he’s still on the team after January 10th or whatever it is, his his deal becomes fully guaranteed. So, if the Jazz don’t agree to a buyout with Kevin Love or don’t trade Kyle Anderson or any of these young players or whatever, uh they will have to most likely wave KJ Martin. Uh though it does sound like they will likely at some point figure out a deal with Kevin Love to move on from him. But yeah, I expect George Yang to be on the roster, probably Kyle Anderson to be on the roster on opening night and just give the team a little bit more shape. Elsewhere in Jazz news, Larry Markin looks uh like 2022, Larry Markin playing for team Finland again. Do you remember the Jazz traded Don Mitchell for him in September? the uh Euro League started right after I think it was September, maybe it was August when the Jazz traded Donovan Mitchell. I think it was September, but uh Euro League starts up. everything was delayed a little bit because of COVID and Lowry exploded and it was a you know forerunner to him becoming an all-star in the NBA for the first time and he picked up all that momentum from his time with team Finland and carried it to the Jazz and had that really terrific first 40 games of the season or 35 games of the season in Utah where he was up at, you know, 26 points a game and nine rebounds or whatever it was. uh he exploded on Friday or it was Thursday night, excuse me, 14 Finland. I guess it was Friday morning. He had 48 points uh in their win over Belgium and had you know twothirds as many points as Belgium had as a team overall. Uh they will play again tonight, team Finland and Belgium and then they will play two games against Poland in the warm-ups and then they will begin Euro League play where team Finland is hosting or Finland is hosting uh group B uh and a chance to advance there. So Lowry picking up steam and he has said I wrote it in an article last week he likes um he likes playing in Euro basket leading into the NBA season because he feels like they’re real NBA games. It’s it’s a chance to develop and get ready and get into game shape as opposed to trying to kind of get up to speed in preeason which is not very long anymore. You know the Jazz are only playing what four games and uh then you’re right into action. He likes this so he feels like this will be a gear up for him which is advantageous for the Jazz. either he’s good and plays well and he’s just a guy you like to have along around and is making 40 million a year and is worth it or he plays so well he becomes tradable again. So both are are probably a positive for the Jazz. That’s really it for the news and the notes. Uh I was talking about draft picks earlier. I did last week it was a kind of a big project. Went back and updated all the Jazz assets that they have trade or I should say draft picks etc. Uh going forward now through the year 2032 because you can trade picks up to seven years out. If you want to go find that at kslports.com, you can just search, you know, Jazz draft assets or Jazz draft asset tracker KSL Sports and you will see it. It’s just kind of a laid out year in year out what picks the Jazz have coming to them, what picks they have traded in the future, they’re still in really good shape. You know, I know they don’t have as many as they did when they started this uh this uh rebuild, but they they’ve continued to manage some of their assets. And while they’re a little bit depleted, I guess in in second round picks, they still have a ton of firsts. And it’s looking more and more like they’re going to get this first round pick this year uh and not convey it to Oklahoma City. And if they do that, I they’ve got 12 first rounders still coming up over the next seven years. You know, you’ve got couple years where you’ve got three in the first round. You got one year where you’ve got four in the first round. in two years from now in 2027 when you have uh the Lakers pick, maybe it’s three that year because you have the Lakers pick, your your own pick and then the best of uh the Timberwolves and the Cavaliers pick. So, they’re going to be loaded. They’ve got a lot coming up still. They’ve got a lot of first round picks and then the unprotected future Phoenix Suns first. And, you know, if they do end up trading Lowry, they’ll probably get another first in that deal. So, they’re going to they’re going to have a lot of these tools to play with uh the same way Oklahoma City does. Oklahoma City’s just, you know, the rubber has met the road. players have started to develop into star players and they’re winning titles and then they have those picks where they become so valuable. That’s what the Jazz are trying to get to. All right, we’ll take a quick break. When we come back, the Jazz mailbag. Stick around. More Jazz Notes coming up next. Welcome back to the Jazz Notes podcast. Ben Anderson rolling solo today again. Chandler will be back next week. Let’s get to the mailbag segment of the show. You can always uh find me on Twitter at Ben Hoops. Read me at kslports.com. But as I mentioned, you can DM me however you want to get interact or respond to my prompt on Mondays to ask a question in the mailbag. Dan USU the right blue always likes to send in a DM uh with a couple of questions and I usually just pick one uh to answer. He says, “In a threeon-ree alltime tournament, which three Jazz players are you drafting in their primes to represent the Jazz and why?” I will tell you honestly I don’t know enough about the threeon-ree format to know what is advantageous like you know Jimmer was a star of the threeon-ree American team and people had high hopes and they were just like they were terrible they they did not compete well in the Olympics and they were eliminated early and it was over really before it started and Jimmer was little. Now a lot of it comes down to shooting and there’s so much spacing that like I don’t know if you necessarily need like a great traditional big man but what Jimmer did wasn’t all that helpful either. So, if I’m trying to piece it together and not just go like, “Well, John and Carl were the two best players, so take them.” I I would probably think you want size and you definitely want some shooting, but you probably got to have a little bit of versatility. Like, I watched the three-on-ree games last year in the Olympics and Jimmer just couldn’t defend anyone and it torched him. So, maybe that makes my first pick a little sketchy, but I’m tempted to say, I mean, because it should just be John Stockton, right? Great outside shooter, tough. Uh, I’ll I’ll go Jon. I’ll go J. And I will tell you my honorable mention at the end. Um, and I’ll I’ll explain why, but I’ll go John Stockton one. Not to be too obvious. I will go Andre Kolinko 2, which doesn’t add the shooting, but erase the space, right? You’re talking about you don’t have a lot of time to close out on on shooters, but you have to defend all over the floor and and guys get switched around a little bit in the threeon-ree. So, I’ll take AK uh just because of his length and he had a little bit of shooting to his game. not great, but you know, mid-30s, low 30s, not nothing shooting. So, I’m not going with like a Walker Kesler. I’ I’d probably go with Andre Kolinko. I’d probably go with Lowry. You know, a sevenfooter who shoots the three that well is is really a one-on-one nightmare. And while Lowry is not great in a five-on- setting, putting the ball on the floor, he can dribble in a three-on-ree setting and would be dominant, you know, as would a lot of these guys. They don’t let NBA players play in the threeon-ree in the Olympics unless you’ve been, you know, inactive or retired for so long. And maybe it’s just never NBA. Well, obviously Jibber’s playing, so it is some NBA guys, but you have to be out of the league for so long. Um, that probably be my group. Stockton, AK, Lowry would certainly be interesting. Um, the honorable mention, the other name I was thinking of before I just kind of took the easy route with Stockton was Daryl Griffith. Uh, and Daryl Griffith, a he was so explosive and that’s how we think of him as, you know, Dr. Dunkinstein. You got to remember Daryl Griffith was the NBA’s leader in three career three-pointers made for a while. Uh the a the NBA instituted the threes right before he came into the league. So they were new, but he was one of the few guys that took a lot of threes early in his career and kind of made them. Uh so Daryl Griffith was a name I would have thought of there. You know what? Uh if you were to go back and you wanted to play that game, Adrien Dantley probably would have been a pretty good threeon-ree player as well, just because he was unguardable in the post. So if you just wanted to dump the ball down low to him at 6’4, 6’5, however big he was, he’s not that big. uh certainly listed bigger than he was. I’ve seen him a few times in real life. He’s not huge. He was pretty dominant one-on-one. So, maybe it’d be something like that. Maybe some combination. So, if I had to do four guys, I would probably go Stockton, AK, Lowry for shooting and length. AK might have the best positional length of any player the Jazz have ever had. Uh Lowry’s in that conversation as well at seven feet with how well he shoots the ball, but then get Daryl Griffith off the bench to bring a ton of a ton of bounce and and some really good three-point shooting as well. So, but again, I don’t I don’t really know the strategy to team building. I don’t know if anyone does. It’s relatively new as a as an Olympic sport at this level. All right. Todd Crow also DM’d me. I don’t know if it’s this Facebook. I don’t know how you got in touch with me, but I just saw it pop up on my phone. Says, “Uh, do you think and do the Jazz brass think Isaiah Collier is close to hitting a ceiling, whereas Keiante and uh and Walt Clayton project better and will push harder for them? How likely is it that Collier’s pace, passing, and potential defense make him a winning player on a good team? So, it does come down to the boring answer of just like you just got to be able to shoot in today’s NBA. And, you know, that’s that’s true. In the past, you know, big guys could just be, you know, guys with clubs for arms that they just swung down and didn’t have a lot of offensive skill and they were just kind of big bodies who do a little bit of rebounding and hand the ball off to the guard and run up the floor. And then we demanded that bigs be more skilled than that. you had to be able to, you know, do multiple things and step out on the perimeter and defend more and guys in the past never used to be able to do that. You know, you can’t just park under the rim. There’s three seconds. But illegal defense has changed or getting rid of illegal defense has changed things and what you can do and movement, etc., etc. So, I I I don’t feel bad that shooting is a prerequisite now for the NBA. You know, the league evolves. It gets better. It should continue to get better. the things you have to do to be good enough to be among the 450 players that belong in this league should be more elite and you should have to sharpen and sharpen and sharpen every year. So, in that sense, you know, if Isaiah can’t shoot, and I have real questions about his ability to ever develop that shot because, you know, he doesn’t shoot free throws particularly well. There’s not even like the the obvious indicators that the shot is going to come along. does lower his ceiling in the sense of just like to be on the floor unless you’re building an offense around a guy who’s so special Allah John Morant who’s not a good shooter but if you can put four other shooters on the floor he’s so good with the ball in his hands and so explosive at the rim that he still is an advantage creator you know if Isaiah can’t do that it’s hard to play him and especially in in important games you know Isaiah has not played an important game for the Utah Jazz yet uh and it might not be a couple years until we know if he can play an important game. And then when you actually get to the playoffs and teams start scheming for what you can and can’t do, you know, you get washed off the floor really quickly. And that’s where the question for Isaiah will be, you know, if the Jazz get to a postseason ever, can you just scheme for him and does he blow up your team because he’s on the court uh at all times because there’s just no spacing anymore. You know, you’ve got a fifth guy, a fifth defender who’s just playing free safety and defending whoever he wants to because he doesn’t have to guard Isaiah. And you know, we saw Ronnie Brewer get, you know, kill the Jazz because Kobe didn’t guard him. They just hid Kobe on uh on Ronnie Brewer because Ronnie couldn’t shoot at all and Kobe could just go defend double team wherever he wanted to. Whatever they felt was most advancious, advantageous to put him in, you know, spots to have success. So, uh it will kill you if you do that. So, that would be my concern for Isaiah. But I don’t think that means his ceiling is lower. He’s just got to learn to shoot. And can he do it? That’s that’s just what he has to do. He’s got to learn how to shoot if he’s going to become an NBA player. You know, if Keonte never learns to defend anybody, teams aren’t going to have a hard time with him in the playoffs either. They’ll just target him every time and push him off the floor. So, you’ve just got to be able to do both, especially at that position. Uh, and that’s why maybe Walt Clayton right now is a guy I’m pretty optimistic on because I actually like his defense. He’s a bit of a defensive playmaker. He got a lot of steals at Florida. Showed some of that, I thought, in summer league as well. And then is a big-time shotmaker. So, he he makes a lot of shots. He’s probably a better shooter than both Keonte and Isaiah obviously and might be a better defensive player. If you can do both, you play. You get to play a lot. So, I don’t want to say they’re down on their ceilings or those guys have low ceilings because they’re 20 years old and and they can still add that. And not a lot of guys get a ton better at shooting, but Isaiah probably only has to get passable, which is like 34 35%. Which maybe that’s attainable. And with his skills and ability to get downhill and his passing, that could really help. So, uh, I I don’t, you know, if I were to say, who do I think is the Jazz’s starting point guard on this team the next time and they’re they’re in the playoffs, I would probably say Walt Clayton if you were asking it or framing it that way. That would be my guess. Um, if they’re on the team at all. And maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s Darren Peterson. All right. Lot of questions on Facebook or excuse me, on Twitter. So, excited to get to these. Jimbo Slice always has a fun one. He says, “Is there a team rule that players aren’t allowed to hang out with certain people in the organization? For example, can the Jazz bear guy and sweet Muk go to dinner? Does that stuff happen or is it weird? Um, I will tell you I don’t think there are rules against it, though. Certainly, there’s just like be careful who you’re intermingling with. You know what I mean? Just like like any workspace. Like there players should be separate from, you know, certain pieces of the staff, but then certain pieces of the staff just have to travel, you know? Like go back and watch the John Tani video of him traveling through southern Utah. Well, they’ve got a social media person with him the whole time. So it’s like you’re in a van for four hours. So you’re going to be talking and interacting and you can do it really well and and you know so in that sense you interact and you go out and have lunch and dinner or whatever because you’re just on the road together. But at the same time like I don’t think Bryce Sensiba or whatever is going out when they’re on the road with you know whatever the the team media member who’s there with them or the PR person necessarily who’s there with them. I I think what I’m trying to convey is that naturally these groups are really separated just because of your job responsibilities. You know, if you’re Jazz Bear, maybe his is a little different because he’s actually like game operations during the game. He’s like kind of doing the same thing the players are doing. He’s entertaining, but the players after the game have to go and get a bunch of treatment. So, everyone’s schedule is really off and it’s really different. So I think these guys hang out with like the media and I don’t mean like outside media, I mean even like internal media, traveling TV media, they hang out a lot less. Like occasionally might they run into each other morning coffee, sure, but like you know Bowler and Thor and Lock are doing something totally different than Isaiah and Walt Clayton and Ace Bailey this year. And then again, like, you know, what does Bowler want to do on the road versus what the 22-year-old wants to do on the road? It’s it’s different. And it’s safe to say it’s different. So, I I don’t know if there’s like strict rules against it, but it’s just these guys are small. They live in small worlds. And you know what? Not even all the players are friends. So, the groups separate off and they’ll do big group activities, but uh you know, you find a couple guys who have a couple things in common with you. You buddy up with them and that’s who you hang out with. And that’s kind of what I’ve observed in in my sense. And then you hang out on the plane. you know, guys are together on the plane and doing their thing there. But I think that’s probably where the majority of the interaction is. And then sometimes you just super hight competitive world, you probably want to get away from each other a lot uh when when you’re off the court. So that happens as well. So Jimbo, no, it’s it’s a very legitimate question, but I think there’s probably less interaction than people think, but everyone’s just kind of friendly uh but not necessarily like let’s hang out together. Uh CJ Real Hoops on Twitter. What’s one what one thing, if any, does this current Jazz roster do better than last year’s roster? Um so I don’t think they’re a So my obvious answer is shooting. And that’s hard to sell because the Jazz lost two of their four best shooters. And actually they lost even more than that. They lost four of their six best shooters from last year. That’s crazy. No, five of their six best shooters from last year. Excuse me. Sorry, let me refrain. So, their six best shooters purely from a percentage standpoint. Now, this is flawed because it includes Drew Eubanks who shot 60% from three last year, but what did he take? Four, you know, all season long, seven all season long. It wasn’t many. Um, but Drew Eubanks technically led the Jazz last year in three-point shooting at 60%. Bryce Sensah was 42%. Colin Ston was third on the team at 40%. John Collins was fourth on the team at 39.9%. Johnny Juang was fifth on the team at 37.6 or 37% or excuse me 37.6%. And uh Jordan Clarkson was sixth on the team at 36%. So Eubanks Ston Collins Juang Clarkson gone. And the Jazz did take a lot of threes last year. Jazz were top 10 in three-point attempts and bottom 10 in three-point makes. Uh, where I think this Jazz team could get better is that a Bryce is back next year and he’s going to shoot better. A, I expect Lowry to be a much better three-point shooter this year. He’s at 34% last year. Weird to to, you know, name those top six and not have him be there. Kyle Filipowski is back. He shot 35% from three this year. That’s a big number. That’s a really good number for a guy who shot pretty well his sophomore season in college, but wasn’t like an elite shooter. I’ll be curious if he keeps doing that. Uh, I’ll be curious if he can uh get that number right around there or improve it. You know, he showed some really bright spots in summer league, shooting the ball well. But as I mentioned, Lowry’s gonna shoot better. I’m betting on Keont to shoot above 34%. Maybe that’s a fool’s errand, but I’m betting on that. You know, Cody Williams was 26% last year. Like horribly low and showed again in summer league. I think he’s better than that. Taylor Hendricks only played three games and he only shot 25%. I think he’s better than that. I think adding Walt Clayton makes the Jazz better than that. I think adding Ace Bailey makes the Jazz better than that. And maybe not. Maybe Walt is or excuse me, maybe Ace is 31% 32%. I I I think if he were to just have taken Yeah. Again, he shot crazy contested numbers last year at uh at at Ruters. Like his his shooting percentage was really good even on even better on contested threes than open threes if I remember correctly. But I just think I think he’s going to shoot better. I think he’s going to be an okay shooter. I think he’s going to get open looks and shoot fine. I think Walt’s going to shoot fine. I think Kant is going to shoot better. I think Cody Williams is going to shoot better. I think Bryce is going to continue to shoot well. I think Lowry is going to shoot better. I think Taylor’s going to shoot better. And then you add in George Nang, who’s a good shooter, like an elite shooter. I think the Jazz might be a better shooting team. I think overall their percentage might improve from what it was last season. And it might be built more into an identity where again, the Jazz were designed to lose games last year, and I don’t think they’re going to try and lose games this year. So, that should help them. So, I kind of think I I think they’re going to be a better three-point shooting team. I also think they’ll just have a better identity this year. remember last year was just such a nightmare of just like try this to lose and try this to lose and try this to lose or try this with no care if you win or not. I don’t think you’re going to see that. So, in that sense, I think a a a kind of more homogeneous identity game in and game out will be uh present and I think that’s a positive. uh you want to see consistency game to game, week to week, month to month. And they just didn’t really have that cuz guys were in the lineup and out of the lineup. It was just such a mishmash. It was such a joke. Um it was hard to watch. So I think this year will feel a lot better if you’re a Jazz fan and that’s an improvement. That’s what they’ll be better at. They’ll have a better identity this season than they did last year. Stockton Ashby curious your pulse on how much of a toll last year took on Will Hardy. We’ll talk about it with the players, but what’s Will’s appetite for that level of tanking? I don’t think it’s high. I don’t think Will enjoyed last year for a lot of reasons. Uh, and you know, understanding that the goal was about and Will’s a good soldier. Like, will bought in and, you know, was rewarded with a contract extension this off seasonason despite the fact that the Jazz won fewer games than they ever have in history. Coaches don’t set a new record for franchise low in wins and then get contract extensions. But Will was on board and did his job and did what exactly what he was asked to do and and had success with it. You know, Jazz got a top five pick and they got one of the one of the guys in the draft in Ace Bailey. So, I I do think it was hard on Will. I do think there are some positives going for Will in general uh going into this season that will help him and probably give him a better, you know, feel going into the year. And the fact that I do think they’re just going to like take the brakes off. They’re they’re taking the governors off and just letting them go uh go full boore. win games if you can win, especially over the, you know, especially through the All-Star break, which I think is what he did his first two years here, and he had the team at 500 each of those years going into the All-Star break right around there. Um, I think you’ll see more of that again. Look, if the Jazz are the sixth worst team in the NBA last season or or this season at the trade deadline and have 30 games left to go and they’re really in danger of losing their draft pick because all the other teams right there start are going to start tanking as well. The Jazz will tank, I would imagine, and will lose games to make sure they hold on to their draft pick because you don’t want to give up the ninth pick to OKC in what’s supposed to be a deeper draft this year than it has been in years past. So, if they have to do what they did last year, they will. Uh, and that could be trading Lowry, it could be trading George, it could be any number of things that they think will make them worse. It could just be playing only young players, whatever. But, yeah, I think it probably wore on him. I’m sure it was grading. I’m sure it was difficult. And, uh, I’m sure he’s more excited this year to go into this season. uh with an opportunity to just kind of coach. He didn’t express that. I will say that honestly. I don’t think he said like, “I I hated this. It was hard on me.” He never once said that in public or behind the scenes, but I think certainly not to me. But uh I think uh I think he’ll be happy going into this year. Jared Christensen on Twitter, if we had kept uh John Collins and Colin Ston, would that have been enough to land Kaminga in a signin trade? Would we want Kaminga if we could land him? He has shown flashes of potential, but maybe a year too early. I’ve talked a lot about thinking John Collins for Kamingo would have made a lot of sense for both teams. I think John Collins is a good player. I think he spaces at the floor. I think he can play small ball center. I think all those things would have been advantageous for the uh for the Warriors. You know, John only makes $20 million a year and I don’t think the Jazz wanted to sign and trade a there’s only so much money the Warriors I think are going to want to take back. They finally have some salary cap flexibility for the first time in their life uh since Steph has been there since early in his career. So, I think they’re probably happy to have some some room, but uh you know, you’re not going to sign and trade Collins and Ston for Kaminga because that’s like $36 million. Um and he’s certainly not worth that, but I would have thought $20 million would have been a good deal for Kaminga and he seems to want more than that. He does seem to want to be up around 30 million. So, it sounds like he’ll probably take the qualifying offer. So, I don’t I I I’m guessing that just like it was just hard to get to those numbers and I don’t think the Jazz maybe even had that conversation at all about getting Kaminga. You know, I haven’t heard much other than just our speculation on this end or that when they were trying to trade Lowry two years ago that that was kind of the name that was out there being floated uh with some of the other pieces in in Golden State. But clearly the Jazz didn’t chase that because I suspect if they really wanted to, they probably could have gotten a deal done or they could have just offered him money this off seasonason and see if they seen if they could have gotten him to uh sign a a restricted free agent contract that the Warriors would have had a chance to match. Uh Tim Hazard, what are some differences of being a reporter under AI as a GM and Lindsay as a GM? Access, routine, amount of info passed on to the national and local reporters, etc. It’s a good question. Um I will just tell you honestly, I have a better relationship with Danny A than I did Dennis Lindsay. And that’s just weird. That’s just like fluky. There’s not really I don’t think there’s a reason for it at all. Well, sometimes you just like end up in a room with a guy like sitting next to Danny A at a weird spot and so you kind of strike up a small conversation that I didn’t with Dennis Lindsay. Also kind of, you know, I was in and out of work a little bit in the media while Dennis Lindsay was in the run. So I’m not sure how much value I had at the time. And when Danny got hired, I was just like working here already. And so you’re kind of grandfathered in as having I don’t want to say authority, but like a job. I was just there. I was in the building and I wasn’t always in the building when Dennis Lindsay was there. So I think that probably affected it a little bit and I will actually tell you since Dennis Lindsay has left the Jazz I had a better relationship with him and like sat with him at Jazz games and you know he would come and hang out before the games because he was you know kind of working in his small role or working with Dallas and was just kind of around and still living in Utah but but doing stuff for for the Mavericks and that I I would sit and talk to him and probably more than I ever talked to him when he was the actual GM of the Jazz. Now, I’ve had a lot of good conversations with Danny. Um, you know, on the record, off the record, about sports, not about sports, just about Danny, his life. He’s asked me about my life, and that was different than anything I ever really had with Dennis while Dennis was a GM, but I’ve since had those conversations with Dennis after he was a GM. Um, or president of basketball operations. And I I like Justin Xanic a lot, too, as well as liking uh Dennis or Danny, I should say. So, in that sense, my personal relationship is different. Um, access and routine is a little bit different. Early in Justin or in Danny’s run, excuse me, early in Dennis Lindsay’s run, there was a ton of access to like pre-draft stuff and that got closed off. You remember notoriously like the Donovan Mitchell workout, like if you tell anyone about this, it’s going to cost you your job. He told people that that were there. I was not at that workout. Um, same thing happened with Rudy Gober a little bit, but you know, all of the Jazz pre-draft stuff is locked up. we don’t know who they work out. That used to get announced. You would get a sheet that had everyone’s face. It got a profile on it and you could go and you could talk to all the players during pre-draft. That stuff has all changed. Um, so there’s some less access now than there used to be as far as like the standard kind of operating day-to-day stuff that was just kind of normal. You would get access to things. Some of that has changed and closed off. Um, but I actually think I have a better personal relationship with some of those guys than I did in the past at that time. uh minus a few names that have come and gone here and there just like scouts and stuff. But so some of like the the normal day-to-day stuff is gone uh and and maybe tightened up a little bit. But I think that’s the case across most sports or most of the NBA. I don’t know if that’s jazz specific, but actually as far as like my personal relationship, I think it’s improved. So it’s a it’s a little bit of a give and take. I will tell you I think you get better coverage from me now than you did then. And maybe I just gotten a little bit better at my job, but I think because of the resources and the the the relationships I’ve built, I have more information now and like a better sense of coverage than I used to have uh with the team in the past. So though I think though I think maybe on average people would say there’s less access than there used to be. Uh Clayson, good question though. Uh Clayson says, “Will the Jazz have a better offensive rating or defensive rating this year?” Offense. Uh, I told you I think their identity is going to improve a lot on the uh as a three-point shooting team and I think Will’s a good offensive coach. We haven’t seen a ton of, you know, the defensive aspect of Will’s coaching yet and he hasn’t had a lot of tools yet. So, you know, I can’t build a house if you don’t give me a hammer and some nails. Uh, Will might not be able to build a defense if you don’t give it to him. Uh, the pieces that that can do it. So, I don’t expect the defense to be good this year. Maybe, you know, one of the five worst again in the NBA, maybe just the worst overall in the NBA again. Uh, but I think the offense shouldn’t be worse in the NBA, even if they’re not, you know, top 15. Uh, Brandon Whiteside, could Hendrickx fill Walker Kesler’s role? Taylor Hendricks. Could Taylor Hendricks fill Walker Kesler’s role, allowing us to trade him for assets, giving us a stretch defensive lineup with defense, five Hendricks, four Flip, three Kesler, two Bailey, and one Collier or Clayton? Uh, I don’t think that’s supposed to be Kesler. Maybe Flip. Um, no. Or excuse me, maybe Ace Bailey. Or you get Ace Bailey in there. Maybe Cody Williams at the three there. Uh, no. I don’t think Taylor can play the five. I think Taylor’s a four five. Uh, but I don’t think he’s a fulltime five. Maybe maybe he’s big enough, but I I just And he guarded WBY as well as anyone has for the Jazz over the last couple of years. He did a really good job. I think Walker’s legit size is really helpful. I think Walker being a legit sevenfooter. I just think Walker’s a really good player. Um, I I would not be all that uh excited to move off of Walker with what the Jazz currently have on their roster. Now, if you know, if Flip played three inches bigger or or uh Taylor Hendricks played three inches bigger, then maybe I would consider it because of what they can do on the offensive end as three-point shooters, maybe having more value with the ability to space the floor. But I don’t think the Jazz have a good backup five right now outside of Ysef Nerk, and we know he’s not a long-term piece of the team. But if the Jazz had drafted a, you know, a center that could space the floor and do some of the same things as Walker defensively, I might be more willing to entertain that. But no, I don’t think the Jazz right now have I don’t know if the Jazz have a long-term piece on this roster outside of Walker who’s a legitimate long-term five. Maybe it is Taylor Hendricks and maybe your your center rotation, you know, two years from now is Walker starts, Taylor’s the backup five and gets a lot of minutes there, which is the same thing you saw with, you know, Derek Favers when Rudy would go off the floor. Even if Favor started at the four, he would just slide up to the five for a little bit and he kind of played the both those positions. Maybe Taylor does that in some smaller ball lineups. Um but but I don’t know how much he’s able to do it right now. Maybe he is. He’s gotten certainly bigger through his chest. And I just don’t think Flip is a good five right now. I think he’s a much better four. So I don’t think the Jazz, barring just like an awesome Godfather offer, one you can’t refuse, uh should give up on Kesler. But maybe that deal comes because he’s only making $4 million a year next year. And I think he has a chance actually to turn a really good team into a championship contender because of uh how good he can be defensively around the rim. Jeremy Fairbanks, do you know if the arena renovation is going quicker than anticipated? And he includes a photo here. He says, “The original timeline showed just the north end being worked on this offseason, the south end next offseason, but they’re obviously doing both ends now. Just curious if they’re ahead of schedule.” Uh some of it’s like lower bowl stuff, some of it’s upper bowl stuff. I got a breakdown at one point on kind of exactly how the approach was going to be. I I don’t I haven’t heard any I will just say I’ve not heard that it’s ahead of schedule. I haven’t heard that at all. Yes, I can see from the photo that clearly they’re they’re working on both, but they tore out everything. Like they have to have some sense of an arena and a shape going into the the hockey in the NBA season. Like I just don’t think you can have a blacked out, you know, behind the the basket area where nobody can hang out at all. Maybe that will be the case in some sections, but I think you have to have some reasonable, especially lower bowl seating uh for both sides. So maybe that’s why, you know, one of them got a more aggressive update than the other. We will just have to see. I but I have not got an update. Uh but it’s a good question and I like the photo and it’s cool to see the arena coming together again. I’m excited to see the technology uh work. I like going to the hockey games, obviously cover the Jazz games. So I’ll be curious to see how the arena feels different for the different sports. But I, you know, the good news is I haven’t heard a setback. Not that I think they would announce that, but there’s not been like, oh, there was a disaster or a fire or something like that that that paused construction. It sounds like everything’s moving forward. You got to realize they’re also building the the practice facility for the hockey team at the same time way out uh way out but near the point of the mountain at the mall. So, uh they’ve got a lot of projects going on right now. It’s a it’s a lot of infrastructure being put in. It’s pretty impressive. Brady NBA, why is Nang a good locker room guy? Will the new guys listen to him? Uh this is a good question. I don’t know. Uh I’ll tell you why he’s a good locker room guy. He’s just like a normal dude. George is like a really down toear guy. He’s like he’s lived a normal life, you know, wasn’t expected to be like an NBA guy. He was a great college player who had to re figure his role to become an NBA player and has turned into a really great shooting specialist and by that sense has carved out a long career for himself. Is that the guy Jazz players are going to look at and be like, I want to be George Niang, so I’m going to model my my career after him. I don’t think so. You know, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. is Ace Bailey looking at George Niang like, “Man, I hope one day I can be George.” No. Um, and the reason George was, you know, kind of such a big name here, uh, his last time around is because he and Joe Engles were just so close. And Joe was a true kind of locker room guy, you know, knew everybody, really could cut through the the tension by being as sarcastic as he was, and George fit into that really well, was quite sarcastic as well. So, I think they they got along and that’s where George kind of filled a role. I think that can help. You know, did I hear, you know, again, I don’t cover Philly. I don’t cover Cleveland. I don’t cover Atlanta. Did I hear George is like great locker room guy there? No, I never heard he was a bad locker room guy, but I don’t know if he like filled the role that he did here in Salt Lake, which was kind of uniquely willing to wrap their arms around him. And Donovan and Rudy had their weird stuff going on. So, there was kind of space for a leader. And Joe filled it and George filled it. So, is that gonna happen this year? Maybe. The Jazz don’t have like a great locker room leader right now. They don’t have like a a a loud voice. So maybe George can do that a little bit and kind of just teach you how to be 30 years old or however old George is. He’s probably right around there now. Um Lowry is just such an introvert. He doesn’t he doesn’t project that. He’s not natural to him. And maybe George has a little bit more of that. And look, he had it in college. So so maybe that that does carry over. Um, but the locker room aspect of it, I just think he’s like he’s just like a goofy guy. And goofy not like unserious, but I just mean like he’s like a funny person. He he’s he’s funny to be around. Uh, I think he will make people laugh. I think he will help cut the tension when the Jazz have lost five games in a row. Uh, but he also brings seriousness. He also brings like a level of of seriousness to the job that I think can, you know, means when you’re practicing and when you’re playing, you got to be the real deal. But there’s also an ability to like flip the switch and be human. And George definitely has some of that. Uh, London BYU fan. What does the goal seem to be this season? Are they going to let the young guys play and just see what happens or are they going to intent intentionally take again? Both. I mean, they’re going to let the young guys play and by letting the young guys play, that will be them tanking. Uh, and I think that’s what you’re going to see. They’re going to lose 60 games again this year would be my bet. I think they’re right around 22 23 wins at the end of the season. Maybe they’re a little bit higher at 25, but I don’t think they’re close to 30. Um, so I think they’re right in there between 20 and 25 as a result of the young players, you know, not winning games and not knowing how to win games. And by in one sense that is intentionally tanking, though it’s not resting Jordan Clarkson due to what we would call, you know, planter fasciitis that seem to come and go depending on who the Jazz were playing. Um, Dan, USU, the right blue, do you ever record live on YouTube? Would be cool to see what uh some of the KSL shows in Locked do. Well, our radio show, uh, you know, I do Jake and Ben 10 to noon every day is live on YouTube. You can go find it at KSL Sports. Just, you go to our website, kslports.com, and there’s a little video player on the right side of the screen that does show us all day every day. And it’s all of the shows. Um, we don’t do this show live, though. We don’t record it live. And some of that’s because podcasting isn’t necessarily just a live show. I get that that’s what Lock does. Um, we could, and there’s a reason we put it on YouTube. It’s not like there’s a lot of editing you can watch it. It’s basically one shot minus when we take a break before the mailbag, but um not we’re not going back and cutting stuff out. You’re trying to be as authentic as possible. We don’t cut out. I’m sure it annoys you guys, but you know, we don’t cut out a lot of the HS. Uh I don’t know. We don’t cut as much of that out. I actually kind of think you want to hear some of it. So, it’s not perfectly manicured. I do think there is a a liveish aspect of it that is beneficial. Uh maybe you hate it, maybe that’s wrong, but I do think that’s part of the value here. I assume at some point we will figure out a way to record this live and we probably could already but then we’re also competing with our other shows that are going live right now which are great. You can find again at KSL Sports on YouTube or go to kslports.com and watch the video player. Brandon Britain, is there supposed to be ongoing construction or closed sections during the Delta Center this season? I think there are going to be sections that are closed off, more closed off. I could be wrong on that. I don’t want to get myself in trouble uh if people are like, “No, there’s just not going to be as many seats. You know, it’s just not finished yet.” I think there are going to be parts that are not as usable and just like seating sections because they’re continuing to develop stuff um because it’s just it’s a three-year project. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe once the arena opens in early October and I should ask I can there’s some people I can ask about this um with the Jazz specifically some higherups if I can if I can run into them which I’m not going to right now but I can send texts um about what it’ll look like. I’m I’m curious uh I’m curious about that as well. I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s going to be spots closed off. That was my assumption. uh there would be maybe fewer seats available throughout the construction and then by the time it’s done, you know, you’re back up to whatever 18,000 19,000 like it’s going to be. Uh Jazzime Jones, our last question on Twitter says, “Do you expect overunder on Bryce’s points per game at 14 points per game?” Let’s see. Bryce Sensab last year was at 11 points a game. He played 20 minutes a night. I think Bryce is gonna play more. So, I would take the over. I think I think Bryce is gonna have a good year again. I mean, he averaged 30, what was it? 37, 36 points a game in the summer, 38 points a game in summer league this year. Bryce can really put it in the basket. He can really score. So, I think 14, someone’s got to pick up those numbers. You know, John Collins averaged 19 points. Colin Ston averaged uh 18 points last year. That’s 37 points that somebody has to score. And Lowry will take maybe seven of them. Key’s going to take a handful of them. Uh Taylor’s going to take a handful of them. Ace Bailey is going to take a handful of them. But like if you told me that Bryce Sensah adds 3.1 points per game, I’d absolutely believe it. I mean, he might just make one more three a game. That gets you there by itself. So yeah, I think uh I think he will get there. I think he’ll get over 14 points a game, which is good. He’s uh again, he’s a really good player. So I’m a big believer in Bryce Sensible, certainly as a shooter and as a scorer. All right, I think that’s it. Uh big thanks to everyone who uh sent questions in. Again, always find us at Twitter at Ben Hoops or at Seahol Sports. Same on Blue Sky. Read us at kslports.com and we’ll be back with you again next [Music]

Ben Anderson discusses the Jazz’s trade for Georges Niang, Lauri Markkanen’s big EuroBasket showing, and answers your mailbag questions. 

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