David Locke: Lauri Markkanen looks like safe bet to remain with Utah Jazz longterm amid rebuild
Join the zone at the Hands and Scotty Invitational, Cedar Hills Golf Club. Hands and Scotty will be broadcasting live from the tournament Tuesday the 19th from noon to 3. DJ PK and David Lock joins us. Radio voice of the Utah Jazz and father of the Utah women’s state amateur champion. David, first time we’ve talked to you since Ardan won it. Congrats to her. First time I talked to her. I talked I talked to PK. Yeah. And PK texts me during and he seems to actually care. I mean just that out. Um thanks PK. I love you babe. You’re welcome. I’m right there with you. Yeah. Um yeah, it was great. And then Bandon Dunes was amazing. Um that was it was really an incredible incredible experience. And the Utah Golf Association just does such an incredible job. the amount of and the Utah Junior Golf Association here really probably one of the most untalked about stories we have had over the last few years between Boston Bracken and Southern Utah Bowen Moss Kihei Kina K’s brother the Shellies I mean there’s just been a you know that’s the pawnages like there’s just been a you know family after family after family of just these incredible golfers and I mean they’re pumping out five six seven eight you know big time division one golfers every year Is Bowen Moss going to play golf? I think he’s going to Isn’t he Didn’t he Isn’t he going to Arizona State? Didn’t he leave Oklahoma State and going to Arizona State? Yeah, I just wanted to hear you say that. Fair point. Um, sorry. I thought it was a legitimate question for a brief moment. I’m not quite on my game yet this morning. My fault. Oh, like you wouldn’t do it when Stanford was flying high in football. get out of town. There’s some sincerity. There was some some real sincerity there. Um gosh, I should have jet light gets me right there. The the fact that it feels like it’s, you know, 4:30 in the morning right now. Maybe it just caught me. Um so, um you know, I think that’s um it’s just really I mean I think I really do. I think what Jeff Thurman does with the Utah Golf Association and then also what Colin and everyone’s doing with the Utah Golf Association are probably should be talked about more. It’s really for a place that doesn’t have golf 12 months a year, people are always awfully surprised with the quality of the kids that come out here and and the program know the collegiate program at BYU is so good. So maybe Utah will add women’s golf one of these days. It is college football season and PK just referenced Stanford. BYU will play Stanford week two. Is there any chance with an interimm coach and everything in transition that Stanford’s going to uh put together a good team this year or does this just feel like a transition year and this is going to be rough and you’re going to watch something else. On a personal note, and I don’t know if it’s just because of conference realignment. I do think it’s because of that, but I don’t know anything. I mean, like I’m totally disengaged. Um I didn’t know we even played BYU in week two. Um it’s really what what has taken place for me and the team’s terrible, right? So there’s there’s let’s not ignore the fact that like simultaneously to conference realignment and actually I don’t care about nil but conference realignment I do care about. Simultaneously that Stanford got terrible. Okay. though. But I will tell you, I just am not I don’t know anything. I’m not engaged. When they play Florida State, it just doesn’t mean anything to me. If they play Duke, I just don’t care. Um so, as I am one who and I didn’t go to school there. I’m just a fan. But um the whole part to me about being a fan was the fact that dad and I went to games and that we have these memories and that every week I could call and if we were playing Washington, you were remembering John Elway’s scramble and Vinnie White’s punt return and that there were just these various moments in time that mattered to you and I just don’t have those anymore at all. And so I look at the schedule, there’s not a single game on the schedule that makes me go, “Oh, I’m fired up for that other than maybe playing Cal.” Um, and so I’m I’m I’m a casualty of either one of two things. Terrible football or the modern system. And I do think Neil’s going to impact some people just because of But Conference realignment that they’ve just taken away the history. And by taking away the history, they’re taking away my fandom. Yeah, you hit that uh last time and I get it. Uh we’ll have to have some changes down the road. And D I can talking to David Shaw after he left uh Stanford. He was talking about there will be a time where there’ll be some more geographical common sense, but we’re just going to have to wade through these times and get I I have a feeling it’s going to be like uh we’re going to look back and the way we do now with baseball stadiums and think about those concrete, no personal flare, no form of charm whatsoever stadiums that were also used for football and we look back and we say, “What the heck were they doing then? Why did they build those stadiums when now they’ve got these stadiums that, you know, are on grass and they show the the the city to a good degree or the warehouse building, whatever it might be.” I think years from years from now when we’re long gone, people are going to look back. Wait a second. You’re telling me Stanford and Cal played in the Atlantic Coast Conference when they were literally minutes away from the Pacific Ocean and they played in the Atlantic Coast Conference. So David Shaw was saying there will be some common sense will be restored and you’re just going to have to wait until then. I would hope so. I don’t know. You know, I also think Stanford has to make some really honest evaluations of like what they’re trying to do or not trying to do. and their previous athletic director was mal practice. So that I think has hurt them a great deal. You are the radio voice of the Utah Jazz and the schedule just came out in a year where you know the Jazz have made deep playoff runs and you look at big games and rematches with other potential teams. I get some of the attraction of that. But in a year where we’re just looking at three rookies, three second year guys and three third year guys and seeing who can really emerge and you know grab their opportunity and show what they can do. That could be any night against any opponent. So I don’t really see what the schedule unless you’re, you know, you want to see the Joker when he comes to town or you you’re a Laker fan from Southern California, you want to see them when it comes to town. But as far as just purely the Jazz, I just don’t see it having that much impact. I agree. I do think the schedule has a really when you’re good I think it’s actually really important like there’s some interesting notes on Denver and how their road home split is really one-sided. I think they’re really road heavy early and then they play something like 20 of their last 30 I think at home. Those things I think really matter. I think that’s bad for Denver by the way. Um, you know, I think they’ll start poorly and people, whether we all remember this or not, people will will worry about it. I think they’re, you know, because they have as big a home court advantage as anyone. I do think with good teams schedule really really matters. Like it it’s a game or two and we’ve seen what a game or two does, right? Um, you’re right for the Jazz. I think you know what jumped out to me is every NBA schedule, you know, has kind of one brutal stretch. I’m not, you know, you that’s the reality. It’s never equally distributed. Um, in fact, the one year where I think it was most equally distributed was maybe one of the worst years I’ve ever been through from a fatigue standpoint. Um, because you never got a reset and we play I think we’re gone 17 of 29th from December 31st to January like 18th. Like so that jumped out at me. Um, otherwise there’s really there aren’t a lot of stretches where you’re like, “Oh dear, you know what’s going to happen?” But yeah, you want to know when Cooper Flag’s coming to town and when you’re getting that matchup and when you’re going to see, you know, I think you there’s some games that maybe don’t, you know, the Spurs obviously have incredible intrigue with with Victor and and then you want your your Giannis trip and those things. So, I agree with you 100%. I don’t think I look at this and say, “Wow, we’ve got a this is really going to change the season or that.” The only one I was a little interested in and I couldn’t find it was is is there any stretch where they could gain some confidence and and maybe early like I don’t know if you noticed but early is particularly soft. So you’ve got the Clippers in Sacramento who are both Clippers are good. Sacramento’s okay. Phoenix and Portland who might not be great back to Phoenix then to Charlotte then to Boston who might not be great. Like it’s actually I mean we could lose all of them too because we’re you know over under. we’re the worst team in the league. But it just I thought that was nice. Like the early part of the season isn’t murderers row where we’re going to go start the year by getting our shouldn’t start the year by getting our head beat in by 20 every night. We’ve seen the Jazz uh jettison the older players all except one essentially and obviously that is uh marketing and this whatever Euro tournament they got going on now he’s lighting it up and to no surprise because he’s going to be better than the the competition that he’s playing in and he’s really good uh when he is engaged. I’m not sure that was going on last season, but nevertheless, a new season is shortly upon us and they can’t give him away essentially what they did for the other guys. So, what do you think’s going to happen here? I think he’s there’s a few reasons why I think he stays. Um, and I think he’s on the roster when we play our next playoff game. Um, so one is there’s a the salary floor is real. like the league rules that you have to have a certain amount of salary on your roster is n I think it’s 90% of the salary cap which is you know part of the new collective bar agreement is that like Draymond Green seems to forget when he’s talking about all the problems for players he’s not actually talking about the fact that there’s now a 90% salary floor um so all the players are getting paid more um and when you you have you know you have to get there otherwise that money goes into a pool it’s not even like the old days where it goes into your own players and so they benefit So that’s one. Two is you do need to have like you need Lowry’s not blocking anyone’s minutes. Like I think there was a real question that like Colin and some of those guys might have been blocking some minutes. Um and then number three, number three is you actually have to have some semblance of of the ability to play and some good players to allow everyone to develop. And then number four is there has to be a path to getting to being good again. And so the path is that Ace Bailey hits to some level, right? Like let’s say he’s, you know, could be on the upside. He’s a Jason Tatum type. Okay? So that means by year three or year four he’s really really good. and let’s say that you’re drafting whomever next year and that they click and they’re three or four. Okay, you need to have this because now if you have Lowry and H Bailey clicks in and next year’s player clicks in and let’s say two of the other six become rotation players. Now you have a bunch of players under cost control. Lowry’s making 40 which is too probably too much in this marketplace for Lowry but the other players are all under cost control and you have space. Now you go in this new day and age where it’s going to be so difficult for everyone to hold on to players or accumulate multiple players. Now you go grab a 35 million or $40 million player. And while Lowry probably needs to be your third best player on a really good team, his 45 million is too much money for that. And so when you start to think about how Lowry fits, well, Lowry fits in the sense that if he’s making 40 million and he’s your third best player because Ace Bailey’s clicked in and you just went and signed your best player and so those two guys are now your top players, then it works. like Lowry’s 45 million works because Ace Bailey or whoever the other kid we draft is are under cost control and now you really have a roster. You’ve got to I don’t think I explained that very well, but you’ve got to have a path by which you can get there in the next four or five years and Lowry is a part of that path. you if you eliminate a Lowry type player, a really good top one, two or three player and you don’t have and you’re completely barren, boy, you’re really it’s a long way before the just the young kids come together. You need the young kids to come together while under cost control, while having someone on the roster, and then you can you’ll have money to sign those other players. A good example that’s not as sexy, but is what Oklahoma City did overpaying Isaiah Harkinstein, maybe even overpaying Alex Caruso. They can do that because Chad and Jaylen are under cost control right now. And so that’s an example of what I’m talking about. Not maybe as pronounced. I mean, I think I’m talking much more that like Lowry hits, Jaylen Brown becomes available and Boston doesn’t, you know, continue. Boston really just turns the corner because Taden can’t come back or something and now you add Jaylen Brown with Ace Bailey and Lowry Markin and now the and the next kid hits and Kiant’s a rotation player and Walker’s your center. Everyone’s three or four years older and now you’ve got it. Now you’ve got something there and you’ve built it and Lowry’s a part of that. I believe Lowry will be on the roster the next time the Jazz play a playoff game. I get your point marketing starting at 46 million and he’s going to 53 by the end of the deal. But that’s also the end of Ace Bailey’s rookie deal at 25 at 12 million. So if you’re paying the two of them 65 million and the team’s really good, the 65 million number works even if the 53 looks way too high, the 12 looks way too low. So it works out, right? Here’s here’s I we’ll have to have more data, but last year the four teams that were in the conference finals, their two best players combined for 85 million or less. All the teams that had somebody that was over 85 million ended up having a real str, you know, end up falling short in some way. Um Minnesota’s trading of Carl Anthony Towns to go get two rotation players is I think the new style of trade that’s important. It’s where maybe Denver may have just done that with the Cam Johnson deal for Michael Porter because they then also added Bruce Brown and you’re getting 50 minutes of play out of that. So that’s where I think things are a little different now than they used to be. That the first your top two players are probably making 85. Your top three players are probably making about 110. Lowry, frankly, for most contending teams at 45 million or 50 million might be really hard to swallow. Lowry may be hard to move, but I think that’s fine because I think he has a role for us. David, we’ll let it go right there. We appreciate the time as always. Good to have you back and we will talk to you again. I appreciate it, DJ. Nice chatting with you, PK. You’re the best. Talk to you guys soon. He’s David Lock, radio voice of the Utah Jazz. When we come back, we will talk with Kurt Schmidt, chief soccer officer for Reale Salt Lake. What kind of info did he get from the league? They must have had some conversations after a bunch of uh debatable, questionable, irritating calls. We’ll talk with him about that. And a new face in the starting 11 this week, maybe. We’ll talk with him about that as well. Stay with us.
Utah Jazz radio voice David Locke joined DJ & PK to talk about the state of his Stanford Cardinal, his daughter’s Utah State Am win and the Utah Jazz.
