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Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 1-29-26 · The Sean O'Connell Show

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Speaker 1: He's the Sean O'Connell Show, brought to you by Big
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Speaker 1: Willies on Utah's number one sports talk and home abuts
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Speaker 1: ESPN seven hundred ninety two one alf AM, a proud
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Speaker 1: part of Utah's ESPN Radio Network.
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Speaker 2: Hapy Thursday, everybody, Welcome to the Shat O'Connell Show. Glad
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Speaker 2: to have you with us, got a fun one lined
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Speaker 2: up for you today. Gordy Chias is gonna be here
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Speaker 2: in studio. Eric Weddle's gonna join us at about one o'clock.
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Speaker 2: We'll be talking about all the latest and greatest developments
0:45
Speaker 2: in the world of sports on a show that has
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Speaker 2: brought to you today and every single day by our friends.
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Speaker 2: Over at Big Willies, Utah's number one Sports bar, Utah's
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Speaker 2: food menu and their incredible drink specials on The Sean
1:10
Speaker 2: O'Connell Show, they will put your name in a raffle
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Speaker 2: to win two eight throw tickets to a Utah Mammoth
1:16
Speaker 2: game coming up on February fourth, I was told by
1:20
Speaker 2: Patrick the owner, proprietor operator of Big Willies, my friend.
1:25
Speaker 2: He said, the entrants this time around have been a
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Speaker 2: little bit lighter than last time, so a higher likelihood
1:31
Speaker 2: that you were going to actually win those tickets if
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Speaker 2: you go and you put your name in at Big
1:36
Speaker 2: Willies at seventeen seventeen South Main a perfect place for
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Speaker 2: you to go watch any NBA games that you want
1:43
Speaker 2: to check out. A wonderful place for you to check
1:45
Speaker 2: out the NHL if you are looking for a spot
1:48
Speaker 2: to kind of make your Winter Olympics home, because you
1:52
Speaker 2: know that they'll have everything on all the TVs. Big
1:54
Speaker 2: Willies as you covered there as well. Another UFC event
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Speaker 2: this weekend their first introduction. The UFC's introduction to the
2:03
Speaker 2: Paramount Plus era was massively successful from a viewership standpoint.
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Speaker 2: They were averaging like four million plus viewers concurrent viewers
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Speaker 2: on the stream on Paramount Plus, which is I mean,
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Speaker 2: that's a way better number than most of their pay
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Speaker 2: per view events. So when they changed the model last year,
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Speaker 2: when they said, hey, we're gonna go with a big
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Speaker 2: streaming partner instead of relying on our pay per view model,
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Speaker 2: where they had worked up to chargings like seventy five
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Speaker 2: bucks per event. A lot of people are like, oh,
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Speaker 2: are they leaving revenue on the table. Well, they got
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Speaker 2: a one point one billion dollar per year deal from
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Speaker 2: Paramount and they're cashing in on it. And I think
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Speaker 2: it's going to be a successful partnership, which part of
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Speaker 2: me doesn't love to see, obviously because in the PFL
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Speaker 2: we're trying to take a little bit of that market share.
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Speaker 2: But it's good for the sport, it's good for mixed
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Speaker 2: martial arts, for combat sports in general to have those
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Speaker 2: kind of results. Jazz in Action at home last night
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Speaker 2: against the Golden State Warriors and they lost one forty
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Speaker 2: to one twenty four. I continue by Ikey feeling towards
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Speaker 2: the insane point totals that Jazz opponents are putting up
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Speaker 2: this year one forty one fifty six, one forty seven,
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Speaker 2: one thirty nine. Uh. Those used to be overtime scores
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Speaker 2: only in professional basketball, and now teams are putting up
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Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty plus with relative regularity. You just
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Speaker 2: I don't like to see it. Say what you want
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Speaker 2: about college basketball because the product there is not always ideal,
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Speaker 2: but at least, they're still learning that you've got to
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Speaker 2: pick people up at full court at least or at
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Speaker 2: least at half court to play defense. The Utah Jazz coincidentally,
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Speaker 2: this year, I'm looking at the full schedule right now,
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Speaker 2: and I'm still scrolling down to find a game in
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Speaker 2: which the Utah Jazz held their opponent to fewer than
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Speaker 2: one hundred points. Porter Larson is producing, by the way,
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Speaker 2: in the stead of James Peterson. Oh, there we go. Nope,
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Speaker 2: that's the Jazz scoring fewer than one hundred points. Wow.
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Speaker 2: Porter is filling in for James who he's got a
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Speaker 2: sick kid, and any of you parents out there, No,
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Speaker 2: it is absolutely the worst. So the temporarily clean cut
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Speaker 2: Porter Larsen behind the glass former Hey Porter.
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Speaker 3: Temporarily keyword there. Yeah, but good to be in with you.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I always appreciate your work on the Drive
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Speaker 2: with Spence Jackets. I'm glad to be able to benefit
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Speaker 2: from it. Your sports mind and takes are always interesting.
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Speaker 2: Is I know Spence likes to keep you down. He
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Speaker 2: likes to suppress because he doesn't want you to become
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Speaker 2: the star of the Drive. I just don't like to interrupt. Yeah. Well,
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Speaker 2: that's polite. You were raised, right, Is that something I'm
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Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't even plan on bringing this up today,
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Speaker 2: But is that something that should bother me as an
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Speaker 2: NBA basketball fan that there is not one single game
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Speaker 2: this year that the Utah Jazz have held their opponents
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Speaker 2: to fewer than one hundred points.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely should It's not only as a basketball fan.
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Speaker 2: Obviously he's a Jazz fan.
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Speaker 3: You know you're not necessarily jockeying for playoff position. You
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Speaker 3: know you're not necessarily trying to win a bunch of
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Speaker 3: games this year. And I get it, but that doesn't
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Speaker 3: mean you have to be like historically bad on the
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Speaker 3: defensive side of the basketball. Right, And then when you
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Speaker 3: zoom out and we're talking just NBA, man, the watching
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Speaker 3: experience has turned more into like, is this all Star
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Speaker 3: weekend with the bunch of guys who are not All Stars.
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Speaker 2: It's a lot of pickup ball, It's a lot.
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Speaker 3: Of one on one and listen, I'm not necessarily like
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Speaker 3: asking for the late eighties early nineties when it's just
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Speaker 3: Bill Lambier punching people. I think there's a middle ground
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Speaker 3: here where you know, we can play some defense, we
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Speaker 3: can get a little physical, we can play hard and also,
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Speaker 3: you know, have some pretty basketball, and I don't think
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Speaker 3: the NBA has found that, and I think it's moving
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Speaker 3: further and further away. It's it's not been a fun
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Speaker 3: watching experience for me this year because it is it's
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Speaker 3: just not serious basketball.
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Speaker 2: If you're curious, by the way, as a fan, who
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Speaker 2: the best defensive team is in the NBA right now,
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Speaker 2: that's the Oklahoma City Thunder in terms of points allowed.
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Speaker 2: OKAC is allowing the fewest points in the NBA right
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Speaker 2: now at one hundred and seven and a half, one
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Speaker 2: oh seven point six. Now, if you go back ten years,
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Speaker 2: one oh seven point six here in twenty twenty five,
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Speaker 2: twenty twenty six. Let's go back to the twenty fifteen
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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen regular season, which, by the way, the Utah
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Speaker 2: Jazz where the second best defensive team in the league.
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Speaker 2: Back then, if you can remember the Jazz, we're giving
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Speaker 2: up ninety six points a game that year, just under
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Speaker 2: ninety five point nine. The San Antonio Spurs the number
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Speaker 2: one defensive team in the league in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen,
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Speaker 2: we're giving up ninety two point nine, ninety three points
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Speaker 2: per game. So we're now talking about I'm not a
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Speaker 2: math whiz, but one oh eight effectively versus ninety three,
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Speaker 2: we're talking about a fifteen point swing in the defensive
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Speaker 2: efforts of the best defensive team in the NBA. Don't
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Speaker 2: tell me it's not a game problem, a league problem,
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Speaker 2: a whole system wide problem.
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Speaker 3: And listen, there's some context here. The game is changing,
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Speaker 3: the game has changed a lot more three pointers. The
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Speaker 3: pace of play has of course changed, but it just
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Speaker 3: it also comes down to officiating. I mentioned the pace.
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Speaker 3: There's just so much context to it. And yeah, man
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Speaker 3: I I don't necessarily love watching basketball games that end
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Speaker 3: with one hundred and forty points on the scoreboard. I
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Speaker 3: know sometimes it's fun to watch the highlight dunks and
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Speaker 3: the alley oops and all the above. But man, I
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Speaker 3: hope the NBA finds a little bit of a middle
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Speaker 3: ground somewhere. And I think officiating, I think does have
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Speaker 3: a big part to do with this. You watch certain
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Speaker 3: players that are just really really good at playing that game,
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Speaker 3: kind of grifting off the foul calls.
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Speaker 4: Right.
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Speaker 3: You hear a lot about James Harden, Shake gild As
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Speaker 3: Alexander's really good at it. Frankly, our guy aj Debonsa
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Speaker 3: in provo is really good at playing that game. Right,
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Speaker 3: I would like to see a little less given to
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Speaker 3: that style of play. And it doesn't mean that, say,
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Speaker 3: Shake gild Is Alexander's not going to be phenomenal anymore.
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Speaker 3: He's got all the skills to be phenomenal without having
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Speaker 3: to get his.
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Speaker 2: Way to the free throw line every other possession. That's
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Speaker 2: one thing that you have to remember, especially about elite
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Speaker 2: athletes and great players. Right, there's always these kind of
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Speaker 2: dismissive comments and conversations about like, oh, well, in today's NBA,
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Speaker 2: so and so wouldn't have been a great NBA player,
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Speaker 2: And my response to that is almost always yes, he would,
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Speaker 2: because that person would adapt as the great athlete, the
9:19
Speaker 2: incredible coordination, whatever, they would adapt to the game of
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Speaker 2: their time. Right. I've had this conversation many times when
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Speaker 2: people get into the crossover athlete thing and they're just like,
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Speaker 2: oh my gosh, like, no NBA guy could play in
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Speaker 2: the NFL. And every time I'm like, that's not true either,
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Speaker 2: because if Lebron James had decided that football was his thing,
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Speaker 2: and you and I have talked about this before when
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Speaker 2: he was a sophomore in high school. Every college football
9:49
Speaker 2: coach in the world wanted him. He was like mister football,
9:51
Speaker 2: Ohio not an easy state to do that. They played
9:54
Speaker 2: decent football in Ohio. If he had decided that that
9:58
Speaker 2: was his focus, and then everything about him adjust to that. Right.
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Speaker 2: His body's already there, right, but you know, his love
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Speaker 2: of contact, his physicality, his mentality, all that gets geared
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Speaker 2: toward football or if it were soccer, or if it
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Speaker 2: were baseball or for whatever, somebody like that. You could
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Speaker 2: put him in any world, then they're gonna do just fine.
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Speaker 2: And I think that what you do have to contextualize
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Speaker 2: these point totals we're talking about, and the game shade
10:27
Speaker 2: Gilder Xander Victor wembin Yama like even a skinny dude,
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Speaker 2: like a chet holmegrin slim reaper build. If you make
10:38
Speaker 2: if you make him adapt to Bill Lambier's NBA is
10:42
Speaker 2: probably not going to be overly natural for him, but
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Speaker 2: he's gonna find a way. These guys will survive. They
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Speaker 2: are elite, elite, elite athletes. And we have now given
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Speaker 2: permission because of oh the game is changing. The three
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Speaker 2: point shot matters more. The officiating has done this way,
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Speaker 2: and the crowds want this. We've now allowed for this
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Speaker 2: to be the case for the best defensive team in
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Speaker 2: the league to be giving up one hundred and eight
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Speaker 2: points a game. That used to be that used to
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Speaker 2: be like middle of the league or worse. Not long ago.
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Speaker 2: I'm talking about ten years ago. Those numbers translated. Wow,
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Speaker 2: the amount we've seen the game change.
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Speaker 3: And I will get Gordian in the next segment, and
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Speaker 3: I want to ask his opinion here because I don't
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Speaker 3: know exactly when it started. For me as as a
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Speaker 3: young kid, it was like the seven seconds or less suns, right.
11:32
Speaker 3: Don Nelson started some stuff with Golden State, even before
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Speaker 3: Steph Curry was there. Monte Ellis and some of their
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Speaker 3: guard centric lineups were just they were running up and
11:43
Speaker 3: down the floor shooting a bunch of shots. The Mavericks
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Speaker 3: did it a little bit early with don Nelson, as
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Speaker 3: did the Nuggets. In fact, the Nuggets kind of tried
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Speaker 3: it in the eighties and nineties. And we're scoring like
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Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty points a game.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we finding that don Nelson is just the root
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Speaker 2: of our problem. Is that what we're getting to here.
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Speaker 3: I mean, he definitely like had a part to play
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Speaker 3: in the game, changing around the three point shot and
12:09
Speaker 3: around like quick offense. Right when you just you get
12:12
Speaker 3: a bunch of shots up, you get your efficiency up,
12:15
Speaker 3: and good luck stopping us, right, he definitely had his
12:19
Speaker 3: hand in that. That's not the part of the game
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Speaker 3: that I have much of an issue with. It's it's
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Speaker 3: the very light foul calling. When you're talking hand checking,
12:31
Speaker 3: you're talking trying to stop a guy from getting around
12:35
Speaker 3: you at the top of the key. There's there's just
12:37
Speaker 3: so much that has changed in the game to make
12:39
Speaker 3: it visibly prettier that I think has made it, I mean, yeah,
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Speaker 3: less gritty, but also for some people less enjoyable to watch,
12:50
Speaker 3: and I think maybe more basketball purists rather than like
12:54
Speaker 3: young fans who just watched the highlights on YouTube, which
12:57
Speaker 3: seems like the demographic that that the NBA is.
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Speaker 2: They're worried about it. They're catering very heavily to that
13:03
Speaker 2: sustainable audience that they can milk money out of for
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Speaker 2: the next thirty years. Yeah. Absolutely, And look, that's why
13:09
Speaker 2: the business of the NBA and the business of the
13:11
Speaker 2: NFL are undefeated in American sport. Right now, because they
13:15
Speaker 2: have that foresight to know what their young audience wants,
13:19
Speaker 2: knowing full well that as much as the old audience,
13:23
Speaker 2: the aging audience will yell and shake their fist at
13:26
Speaker 2: the clouds, we're not turning it off. We're not canceling
13:29
Speaker 2: our tickets. Where I mean, they've the NFL and the
13:33
Speaker 2: NBA very specifically have survived some really serious ups and downs,
13:37
Speaker 2: scandals and things like that, and there's an element of
13:41
Speaker 2: being bulletproof in their business models. We'll talk a lot
13:44
Speaker 2: more about this basketball stuff when Gordy joins us for
13:47
Speaker 2: a full hour, starting in about fifteen minutes. I put
13:51
Speaker 2: a couple poll questions up as I want to do,
13:54
Speaker 2: and I would love to have your response on it
13:56
Speaker 2: at REALOC Sports. You can also text us at eight
13:58
Speaker 2: seven seven three five three zero seven hundred. You can
14:01
Speaker 2: call us if you want to hear Porter's dulcet tones
14:04
Speaker 2: in a personal phone call. I want to know how
14:09
Speaker 2: important the updates, the modernity, the amenities, even like the
14:18
Speaker 2: structural integrity of your building, arena, your stadium, the place
14:24
Speaker 2: where you're going to watch live sports. How important is
14:26
Speaker 2: that to you? We saw yesterday Charlie mon Fort field
14:32
Speaker 2: get rolled out by the University of Utah, and it
14:35
Speaker 2: is a small venue, it is intimate the backdrop. Thank goodness,
14:39
Speaker 2: we've got this still. Congratulations to everyone involved in that
14:44
Speaker 2: project making sure that you have the mighty Wasatch Mountains,
14:48
Speaker 2: the Batter's Eye and beyond. We're losing that with Bees Ballpark,
14:52
Speaker 2: with Smith's Ballpark, whatever you want to call it. That
14:55
Speaker 2: was previously the best minor league view in the United
14:59
Speaker 2: States of America, and now we're getting sort of a
15:02
Speaker 2: replacement of that with this new field, new university facility
15:09
Speaker 2: right there at the south reach of campus in what
15:14
Speaker 2: is I hope going to be a nice little injection
15:18
Speaker 2: of support money interest in Utah baseball. But it is
15:23
Speaker 2: a glittering facility. It is beautiful, right and for some
15:28
Speaker 2: people that truly just does energize their interest in there.
15:33
Speaker 2: It reignites commitment and it's I'm going to buy season
15:37
Speaker 2: tickets now because it's that place instead of Bee's Ballpark,
15:41
Speaker 2: which doesn't make a ton of sense because that was
15:43
Speaker 2: also a great facility. But in any case, we're also
15:46
Speaker 2: getting the stories of the reimagination of a Huntsman Center
15:51
Speaker 2: that so many of us have great memories in but
15:54
Speaker 2: every single one of us would acknowledge is a little
15:56
Speaker 2: bit overdue yep for an upgrade, right, And there was conversation,
16:01
Speaker 2: I guess it was around this time last year that
16:03
Speaker 2: they were just gonna tear it down and relocate it.
16:06
Speaker 2: They were gonna move it somewhere else. There was conversation
16:09
Speaker 2: about whether or not it was gonna go with the
16:10
Speaker 2: dang parking lot of Rice Eycles Stadium, whether they were
16:13
Speaker 2: gonna move it further south on like the like kind
16:17
Speaker 2: of be off campus. Almost if there was anywhere else
16:20
Speaker 2: on the geographic footprint of the University of Utah that
16:23
Speaker 2: you could put that would it would it be better
16:25
Speaker 2: to put it in more of a downtown setting. There
16:27
Speaker 2: were all these conversations were happening about the basketball, gymnastics,
16:33
Speaker 2: whatever arena, and people have strong opinions about it. Nobody,
16:39
Speaker 2: I think is going to be a dissenter on whether
16:41
Speaker 2: or not you need something new. My question for all
16:45
Speaker 2: of you is how important is that stadium for your experience?
16:50
Speaker 2: Because the television viewing experience now is impeccable, it is fantastic.
16:57
Speaker 2: Every one of us can spend, you know, a few
16:59
Speaker 2: hundred bucks on a TV that is better than any
17:02
Speaker 2: TV you grew up watching. It's bigger, it's flatter, it's brighter,
17:07
Speaker 2: the picture is clearer, and if you spend the extra money,
17:11
Speaker 2: you can watch however, many games at a time, six,
17:13
Speaker 2: eight games at a time, depending on what your subscription is.
17:17
Speaker 2: I mean, there is just there is just endless possibility
17:22
Speaker 2: for you as a sports viewer now at home. So
17:26
Speaker 2: I feel like the builders of arenas and stadiums know this,
17:33
Speaker 2: and they're like, what do we need to do? How
17:36
Speaker 2: do we keep up with the demand of the people. Well,
17:39
Speaker 2: for me, the live sporting experience is just the live
17:44
Speaker 2: sporting experience. If you put me in a folding chair,
17:47
Speaker 2: or you make me stand up or whatever, I'm probably
17:49
Speaker 2: still gonna enjoy it. Is it better when you have
17:53
Speaker 2: the box seats and the luxury couch and they got
17:56
Speaker 2: a couple like stadiums, swim down in Vegas? Whatever? Sure
17:59
Speaker 2: do I do? I like those things, yes, of course,
18:03
Speaker 2: But how important is it to you? On the Twitter pool,
18:07
Speaker 2: I put four options massively important. I should have put
18:10
Speaker 2: like deal breaker, But That's what I'm talking about with
18:13
Speaker 2: massively important. Is the condition of the stadium enough to
18:16
Speaker 2: either get you there or I'm not going because I
18:19
Speaker 2: don't want to be in that building. They don't have
18:22
Speaker 2: the luxury box, so I'm not viewing it in person.
18:24
Speaker 2: I don't want to be there because the bathroom lines
18:27
Speaker 2: are too long, or the concessions hauls are too cramped
18:31
Speaker 2: or whatever. There's that. There's the very important where. Look,
18:36
Speaker 2: I'll go watch at Rice Cycle Stadium because it's cool.
18:39
Speaker 2: I'm not going to watch at the Huntsman Center because
18:41
Speaker 2: it's too old. That's somewhat in the middle. Is it
18:46
Speaker 2: somewhat important where it probably is kind of a neutral
18:48
Speaker 2: experience or are you like me, it's not important at all,
18:52
Speaker 2: Like I'm buying the ticket and I'm probably spending the
18:54
Speaker 2: same on the ticket, whether it's a great stadium with
18:59
Speaker 2: you know, he toilet seats or I'm going in a
19:01
Speaker 2: troughhy journal I just want to be there for the
19:04
Speaker 2: live sporting experience. And we've got a broad mix right now,
19:07
Speaker 2: massively important, very important, somewhat important, or not important. How
19:11
Speaker 2: do you rate the amenities of your arena or stadium
19:17
Speaker 2: in regards of its importance to you wanting to be
19:19
Speaker 2: there in person? Porter do you have I think I
19:23
Speaker 2: know how you're gonna answer this, but I don't want.
19:25
Speaker 3: To project onto you. Well some more context here. We're,
19:31
Speaker 3: as media guys, were a little spoiled in this regard.
19:34
Speaker 2: Truly.
19:35
Speaker 3: We get the press box, we get the credentials, we
19:37
Speaker 3: you know, we get fed all the above. But from
19:41
Speaker 3: like a fan standpoint, I am kind of a nostalgia
19:45
Speaker 3: guy when it comes to a lot of the arenas,
19:47
Speaker 3: the stadiums. I would rather like go to an old
19:52
Speaker 3: historic stadium than Allegiance Stadium, right Like sure, for example,
19:58
Speaker 3: I went to the last at the Cowboys old stadium
20:01
Speaker 3: at Texas Stadium. Haven't been to the big new one.
20:08
Speaker 2: You know. That's just kind of my mo o here.
20:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, now that being said, I also don't necessarily want
20:14
Speaker 3: to like sit in one concession line for a drink
20:17
Speaker 3: for thirty minutes. I don't want to use a bathroom.
20:21
Speaker 3: Where As you mentioned, you're is that a is that
20:25
Speaker 3: a jurnal or is that what? Is that a horse trough?
20:27
Speaker 3: Is that a a Why?
20:29
Speaker 2: Why is there ice in there? Is that a weird
20:31
Speaker 2: load drinking fountain? What's happening? Right? Yes?
20:34
Speaker 3: Like updates are always going to be necessary, I think,
20:38
Speaker 3: especially in today's age when you are trying to get
20:41
Speaker 3: people out of their homes to go watch a game.
20:44
Speaker 3: You're gonna have to play that game. But I am
20:47
Speaker 3: a little bit of a nostalgia guy, right, Like that
20:49
Speaker 3: you mentioned the Huntsman Center, I'm very much pro renovation
20:53
Speaker 3: rather than restart, right, Yeah, absolutely, especially a building with history. Right,
20:59
Speaker 3: that's a that's one of those. So I'm gonna go,
21:04
Speaker 3: Like if our poll is being there, I'm gonna probably
21:07
Speaker 3: be in the somewhat important range, which it looks like
21:09
Speaker 3: the majority of the listeners are. But that also comes
21:13
Speaker 3: from a standpoint of spoiled media guys, and my lean
21:18
Speaker 3: towards a little bit more of a nostalgia thing. When
21:20
Speaker 3: I'm talking about venues, I think that's always bigger to me.
21:25
Speaker 3: It's more exciting for me to go to a place
21:28
Speaker 3: that is, you know, was built in the forties and
21:31
Speaker 3: has stood the test of time, even if it's kind
21:34
Speaker 3: of this old crummy stadium.
21:35
Speaker 2: Sure, then going to.
21:38
Speaker 3: The latest project by the local construction company, right, it's cool.
21:44
Speaker 3: I'm glad they have the updates. I'm glad they have
21:46
Speaker 3: better facilities, like at the U right now, the new
21:50
Speaker 3: end zone awesome, it's beautiful and if you remember what
21:54
Speaker 3: it was like before. The locker rooms, the press conference room,
21:57
Speaker 3: the like that needed to happen.
22:00
Speaker 2: The home locker room at the old south end of
22:03
Speaker 2: res Eco Stadium. The home locker room was an absolute
22:08
Speaker 2: disgusting embarrassment. The home locker room and the new end
22:15
Speaker 2: Zone club and the it's just it's wonderful. It's on
22:19
Speaker 2: par with a lot of the pro locker rooms and
22:23
Speaker 2: stadiums that were built in the same time period. And
22:26
Speaker 2: it's going to be leveled up again, probably in ten
22:28
Speaker 2: years instead of in thirty years, because you have to
22:31
Speaker 2: keep up with the Joneses, and you have to fight
22:33
Speaker 2: that fight. And I will say this, there are very
22:36
Speaker 2: few things that could make me feel bad for professional
22:39
Speaker 2: sports teams, or professional sports owners, or even collegiate decision makers.
22:44
Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of sympathy for those people
22:46
Speaker 2: because most of them are uber wealthy or collecting inflated
22:52
Speaker 2: salaries or whatever. This is a place where you're kind
22:55
Speaker 2: of damned if you do and damned if you don't,
22:58
Speaker 2: because if you don't keep up, if you don't upgrade,
23:02
Speaker 2: you've got a certain segment of your fan base that
23:05
Speaker 2: is just like, I'm not coming anymore. Look what you've done.
23:08
Speaker 2: You've let this fall into disrepair. Everyone else is outpacing us.
23:13
Speaker 2: You've got a certain segment of your fan base that
23:14
Speaker 2: does that, and then when you do pay for the upgrade,
23:17
Speaker 2: you've got the other segment of your fan base that
23:20
Speaker 2: is just like, I'm not paying more for my tickets,
23:23
Speaker 2: and this is it's sterile now. It's like what happened
23:27
Speaker 2: to the character of our old place. So you're damned
23:30
Speaker 2: if you do, damned if you don't. In some cases,
23:32
Speaker 2: and it's very rare that the architects and the designer
23:36
Speaker 2: and everyone in the construction company they thread that needle
23:39
Speaker 2: where you kinda oh, it reminds me of the old
23:43
Speaker 2: Huntsman Center. It reminds me of the old whatever, Wrigley Field.
23:47
Speaker 2: But this is better. I like this. This is nice.
23:50
Speaker 2: It's updated, it's upgraded. I have a bit of a
23:53
Speaker 2: blind spot where. I mean, I've been to so Nissan Stadium,
23:57
Speaker 2: where the Tennessee Titans play, is like twenty seven years old.
24:01
Speaker 2: They're tearing it down and they're doing a new one.
24:03
Speaker 2: And I went to a game because our guy Eric
24:05
Speaker 2: Wedda was playing on the road there. I went to
24:07
Speaker 2: a game there. It would have been two thousand and seven,
24:12
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, No, twenty seventeen, and I was like,
24:17
Speaker 2: all right, cool, cool stadium. Like three years later, everyone
24:21
Speaker 2: started talking about what a dump it is, how dilapidated
24:24
Speaker 2: it is, how terrible it is, and I was like,
24:26
Speaker 2: what are people talking about? And now they're replacing it
24:30
Speaker 2: less than a decade later. I'm just gonna I guess
24:33
Speaker 2: I have my radar for what needs to be improved
24:38
Speaker 2: or fixed when it comes to arenas and stadiums is off.
24:42
Speaker 2: I think I guess too. I think I'm with you
24:44
Speaker 2: on that.
24:46
Speaker 3: I will say I like that you bring up like
24:49
Speaker 3: the designer, the architect, all this working together, because that's
24:52
Speaker 3: part of it for me. Sure you can update it,
24:54
Speaker 3: you can make it cool, but don't just make it
24:57
Speaker 3: like a box with white walls. And it just seems
25:02
Speaker 3: like a lot of the newer stuff outside of the
25:04
Speaker 3: big Grand, the Allegiance, the you know, some of the
25:08
Speaker 3: big CRAZYI is insane, SOFI is ridiculous.
25:12
Speaker 2: Levi Stadium, where my beloved Niners play, is kind of like, right,
25:18
Speaker 2: it's a little sterile. My dream job if I had
25:21
Speaker 2: ever cared or gone to school for something like this.
25:24
Speaker 2: They now have stadium curators, the person who's like kind
25:27
Speaker 2: of responsible for all right on this concourse, what are
25:32
Speaker 2: we gonna have? Is our hall of honor gonna be here?
25:35
Speaker 2: Are we gonna do an art mural? Are we gonna
25:37
Speaker 2: do some memorabilia museum? Whatever? And the good ones really
25:43
Speaker 2: nail it, and then the bad ones you're just like, Okay,
25:46
Speaker 2: So this is just a generic, large taxpayer funded building
25:54
Speaker 2: that now a professional sports team plays in, and they
25:56
Speaker 2: can they can swap out the colors, and I have
25:59
Speaker 2: no feeling for this place. I guess since you mentioned it.
26:04
Speaker 2: That's another aspect of this.
26:05
Speaker 3: When you are asking your community to foot the bill
26:10
Speaker 3: for something, have their history, you know, their character involved
26:16
Speaker 3: in it in some form, right, Because I, like you said,
26:20
Speaker 3: the majority of these stadiums, these arenas, these these public
26:26
Speaker 3: private entity things are taxpayer funded in some way. So yeah,
26:31
Speaker 3: I think that there could be more involvement there, uh,
26:34
Speaker 3: getting getting some character, getting some some history there. That
26:39
Speaker 3: is definitely part of my reasoning for not necessarily caring
26:44
Speaker 3: for brand new, shiny stadiums all the time as well.
26:47
Speaker 2: So Utah, the University of Utah hit a home run
26:52
Speaker 2: pun intended with mont Ford field. It is beautiful, it
26:56
Speaker 2: looks great, it is great. It is the right size,
26:59
Speaker 2: it is beautiful, it's wonderful. I love the Dumpky as well.
27:02
Speaker 2: I think they've done a really great job modernizing that
27:05
Speaker 2: campus in a way that improves it. There's a lot
27:09
Speaker 2: of modernizations that happen in sports that are not improvements.
27:13
Speaker 2: They are just modernizations, and it's like, this is a
27:16
Speaker 2: neutral outcome at best. It costs a lot of money, yep.
27:19
Speaker 2: Or it made it worse, it put it further away
27:22
Speaker 2: from campus or whatever. Like, I'm optimistic that whatever happens
27:28
Speaker 2: with the Huntsman Center, if you're putting the same kind
27:31
Speaker 2: of people in charge that did that baseball field that
27:35
Speaker 2: they opened up yesterday, I think we can trust this process.
27:38
Speaker 2: I think we can make we can make assumptions about
27:41
Speaker 2: the fact that it's going to be good for the university.
27:44
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're the type of fan out
27:46
Speaker 2: there that's like, I will definitely start going to Red
27:49
Speaker 2: Rocks meets, and I'll definitely start going to men's and
27:52
Speaker 2: women's basketball games if that stadium experience improves. I'm not
27:58
Speaker 2: that type of fan. I don't judge you if you are,
28:03
Speaker 2: because It's a great experience watching at home all the time.
28:06
Speaker 2: You got your own fridge right there, you got your
28:08
Speaker 2: own bathroom right there. You can control the volume. You
28:12
Speaker 2: get insights and replays in the game that are sometimes
28:16
Speaker 2: more interesting, better whatever. I like this text from sixteen
28:21
Speaker 2: twenty four. This is probably where I met out Derek
28:24
Speaker 2: on the text line, I personally do not care about
28:26
Speaker 2: the venue where these events are being played. I go
28:28
Speaker 2: to watch the team play, not to inspect the modernity
28:31
Speaker 2: of a building. I watched jazz games in the Delta
28:34
Speaker 2: Center as a kid in the mid two thousands, had fun,
28:36
Speaker 2: went to a Mammoth game back in November, had a blast.
28:39
Speaker 2: As long as the building doesn't cave in on me
28:41
Speaker 2: while I'm inside it, and I could afford it, I'll
28:44
Speaker 2: go watch the games. Yes, that's kind of how I feel.
28:50
Speaker 2: And again I've been like, I made my pilgrimage as
28:54
Speaker 2: a young man, raised Catholic, I made my pilgrimage to
28:57
Speaker 2: Notre Dame Stadium and people were just like, oh, yeah,
29:01
Speaker 2: now what it used to be. Notre Dame Stadium is
29:04
Speaker 2: not great, And I was like, what are you talking about?
29:07
Speaker 2: This is the Holy Land, this is a Cathedral of
29:09
Speaker 2: college football. There's there's history behind that, and I'm looking
29:13
Speaker 2: at it like, oh, I love this place, what do
29:15
Speaker 2: you mean? And they're just like, oh, dude, look, I
29:17
Speaker 2: mean this. There's a certain part of the concourse at
29:20
Speaker 2: Notre Dame Stadium that the sun has never shined on.
29:24
Speaker 2: So if you're there in like November December, it is
29:27
Speaker 2: frigid and horrifically cold in that, like while you're waiting
29:31
Speaker 2: to get your your soda or your hot dog or whatever.
29:34
Speaker 2: I'm like, that is not something I would ever notice.
29:36
Speaker 2: I'm there with people who have been to a thousand
29:39
Speaker 2: Notre Dame games and they're like, this is why we
29:41
Speaker 2: don't like it. I'm like, what are you talking about? Man?
29:44
Speaker 2: This You know how many pictures I've seen of this place.
29:46
Speaker 2: You know how many movies this place has appeared in,
29:49
Speaker 2: And now I get to be here, So your prospective
29:51
Speaker 2: matters a lot on this. Please lend me yours at
29:55
Speaker 2: eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred or
29:57
Speaker 2: at Real oc Sports forty three fifty nine with other uh.
30:01
Speaker 2: The Rose Bowl is historic, great sidelines and character. It
30:04
Speaker 2: is also a miserable place to see a game, with
30:07
Speaker 2: absurdly incimnia, parking concessions and restrooms give me so far. See,
30:13
Speaker 2: I totally value that opinion. I am as far on
30:17
Speaker 2: the opposite end of that spectrum as one can imagine.
30:19
Speaker 3: The only the only time that I think the Rose
30:21
Speaker 3: Bull can be like really bad is when it's wet.
30:25
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've been because that you park
30:28
Speaker 3: on a golf.
30:28
Speaker 2: Course, but the golf course is just sogging it. It
30:30
Speaker 2: does turn into a a mess, it's a mire.
30:33
Speaker 3: But for me like to come down that little canyon
30:37
Speaker 3: and see that that stadium with palm trees all around
30:41
Speaker 3: it and the mountains in the background and the ocean
30:44
Speaker 3: off to the other side, like it it is. It
30:46
Speaker 3: is a phenomenal venue. The the way that the stadium
30:50
Speaker 3: is built like out and up and it just is
30:53
Speaker 3: it a full complete bowl. I love the experience at
30:58
Speaker 3: the Rose Bull. You mentioned the Notre Dame thing, Like
31:03
Speaker 3: that's how I feel when I walk into the Huntsman Center,
31:05
Speaker 3: right because there's so much behind that. There's so many
31:09
Speaker 3: final four runs, the bird and magic like you grew
31:12
Speaker 3: up seeing that. I know there's a lot of people
31:15
Speaker 3: on the hill that weren't here for any of that
31:18
Speaker 3: there's a lot of execs and whatnot that are newer.
31:21
Speaker 2: To the market.
31:22
Speaker 3: I hope that they have that in mind, because I
31:24
Speaker 3: do think that whether you relocate it, whether you build
31:27
Speaker 3: it back up from what it is, it's got to
31:30
Speaker 3: have that character.
31:31
Speaker 2: Just keep a piece of that and easier said than done.
31:36
Speaker 2: But that's the Twitter poll, one of the Twitter polls today.
31:39
Speaker 2: We'll get into another one about recruiting philosophy, as it
31:43
Speaker 2: is once again the season for a lot of young
31:46
Speaker 2: men in the college football world, or I guess in
31:48
Speaker 2: the high school football world, to be posting their graphics,
31:51
Speaker 2: their edits on Instagram of their final tens, their final fives,
31:55
Speaker 2: their final threes, their God's plans. We'll get to that later.
31:59
Speaker 2: Right now, we're going to take a quick one here,
32:01
Speaker 2: and Gordy Chias is going to be here in studio
32:04
Speaker 2: with us talking a little NBA. Maybe he can explain
32:08
Speaker 2: for us why defense is optional in today's NBA. It's
32:11
Speaker 2: the Shout O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred. Now, did
32:14
Speaker 2: you want ff? Come on? Fine, if you're driving along,
32:45
Speaker 2: walking along, sitting at your desk and you're not moving
32:48
Speaker 2: your head a little bit, humming along, at least wishing
32:52
Speaker 2: you knew every single word, but kind of you know,
32:54
Speaker 2: doing that, you gotta at least be doing that signifies
33:01
Speaker 2: one of my favorite times of the week. Gordy Chieza
33:03
Speaker 2: here in studio with us. We've got them for the
33:06
Speaker 2: next hour or so. Gordy, welcome, How are you.
33:08
Speaker 4: I'm doing fine, Sean, And you know, with the Redbone
33:10
Speaker 4: for the young listeners out there, it was originally in
33:13
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy four, so these guys around for a long time.
33:17
Speaker 4: But for younger people like Porta Lass and type people,
33:21
Speaker 4: that was done in the Galaxy movie back in twenty fourteen,
33:25
Speaker 4: The Guardian of the Galaxy, and that's where the song
33:29
Speaker 4: was and that's when everybody heard about it. And I say,
33:31
Speaker 4: you're right, however, Ulster's like me, that was back in
33:34
Speaker 4: seventy four when it first came out.
33:36
Speaker 2: Oh, that movie brought kind of the.
33:39
Speaker 4: Guardians of the Galaxy movie back in twenty fourteen.
33:42
Speaker 2: It brought the music of your earlier days back into
33:46
Speaker 2: the pop culture lexicon for the young folks, it absolutely did.
33:50
Speaker 4: So we're grateful that the people know about it.
33:53
Speaker 2: And yeah, Redbone, Gordy, we were talking about I don't
33:59
Speaker 2: even know how we got on this topic, but you're
34:01
Speaker 2: the right person to discuss it with looking at the
34:05
Speaker 2: top defensive team, ohays, because the Utah Jazz again with
34:09
Speaker 2: a you know, giving up one hundred and forty points
34:11
Speaker 2: to an opponent, and goodness gracious, and I looked it up,
34:16
Speaker 2: went through the entire schedule this year. They have not
34:18
Speaker 2: held one opponent to fewer than one hundred points so
34:20
Speaker 2: far on the season, not one time, zero games. If
34:25
Speaker 2: the Jazz held someone under a hundred points defensively in
34:28
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six, and I was like,
34:32
Speaker 2: all right, but how how good are the best defensive
34:35
Speaker 2: teams right now in the NBA. I'm sure you're already
34:38
Speaker 2: aware of this, but Oklahoma City is number one team
34:41
Speaker 2: in the league and they're still giving up one hundred
34:43
Speaker 2: and eight points a game. Fifteen years ago, excuse me,
34:47
Speaker 2: ten years ago, the leading defensive team in the league
34:50
Speaker 2: was the San Antonio Spurs and they were giving up
34:53
Speaker 2: ninety three points a game. So we know that the
34:56
Speaker 2: game has changed pretty rapidly and pretty drastically over these years.
34:59
Speaker 2: And that is one of the most obvious places in
35:02
Speaker 2: which the game has changed. And I think that officiating
35:05
Speaker 2: in the league office, and everyone's kind of like okay
35:07
Speaker 2: with it. They liked it more scoring, they like the
35:10
Speaker 2: all Star game caliber defense that we're seeing in a
35:13
Speaker 2: lot of these contests. And we've talked about this some, Gordy,
35:17
Speaker 2: But how hard is it to adjust to as a coach,
35:21
Speaker 2: because a lot of coaches in today's NBA were certainly
35:24
Speaker 2: around ten years ago in some capacity or another. Plenty
35:28
Speaker 2: of them were either head coaches or lead assistant coaches
35:31
Speaker 2: in the league back then. And fifteen point swing is
35:34
Speaker 2: not something small to manage, I imagine.
35:37
Speaker 4: No, not at all, And there pays some reasons why
35:39
Speaker 4: it happened was that the NBA took away the hand
35:42
Speaker 4: check rule and there's less more just generally speaking physicality,
35:47
Speaker 4: so that you can't really put your body totally on
35:51
Speaker 4: a cut it to the basket. Next part about it
35:54
Speaker 4: is rest management is a factory where teams historically shown
35:58
Speaker 4: don't practice dramatically as much as ten years ago. So
36:03
Speaker 4: that thing called rest management where some players set out
36:09
Speaker 4: actually games and now teams as far as actually practicing
36:14
Speaker 4: hard and well are not there. So which means that
36:17
Speaker 4: the teaching drills and the drills that form, the winning
36:20
Speaker 4: habits aren't as prevalent and as consistent. That so, thus
36:26
Speaker 4: when you play in a game, the players really aren't
36:30
Speaker 4: technically wise and as far as technique wise, So the
36:35
Speaker 4: technical meaning wise, the group dynamics, and also the individual
36:39
Speaker 4: technique because Sewan in basketball, just looking in the NFL,
36:42
Speaker 4: your hands and your feet of your career technique is everything.
36:46
Speaker 4: When you're d back in the NFL or safety, how
36:49
Speaker 4: to use your hands to the advantage. In basketball, you're
36:52
Speaker 4: trying to steal the ball, you're trying to level off
36:55
Speaker 4: the dribbler. How to move my feet and how to
36:57
Speaker 4: use my hands, and also when you're playing the low block,
37:00
Speaker 4: how to I use my chest. We call that numbers
37:03
Speaker 4: on numbers where you legally use your chest your upper
37:06
Speaker 4: body tosso strength to contest position and to challenge the shot.
37:11
Speaker 4: So that's how it's it's not one thing, it's all changed.
37:14
Speaker 4: TV is involved in this equation as always because TV
37:17
Speaker 4: pays absolutely billions of dollars to to uh broadcast NBA
37:21
Speaker 4: games and they don't want games in the nineties where
37:24
Speaker 4: it's a slug fest. However, shown in the playoffs, it's
37:28
Speaker 4: a direct opposite where the game is play like, including
37:31
Speaker 4: the Super Bowl, the game is the defense wins championships,
37:37
Speaker 4: offense wins games. Now, those those things get blurred in
37:41
Speaker 4: the in the lexicon, they get buried.
37:43
Speaker 2: I get it.
37:44
Speaker 4: But you've got to play defense. So generally speaking, whoever's
37:48
Speaker 4: NBA champions this year has a defensive mindset. Yes, they
37:53
Speaker 4: have scoring people. Absolutely, they can have the MVP.
37:56
Speaker 2: I get it.
37:56
Speaker 4: If you you know Thunder, if you're the say Detroit
37:59
Speaker 4: Pistons with Cake him et cetera, Denver Nuggets Phillip Blankson.
38:02
Speaker 4: But all those teams play defense. It's very rare. You're
38:06
Speaker 4: only one side of the ball offensive minded.
38:09
Speaker 2: And by the way, the numbers will reflect that. If
38:12
Speaker 2: you go look up, and it's easy to do it,
38:14
Speaker 2: you can go look up the regular season stats, the
38:18
Speaker 2: defensive leaders in the regular season, and then that for
38:21
Speaker 2: that same year, you'll pull up the postseason stats and
38:25
Speaker 2: the numbers tell you, oh, look, they started caring about
38:27
Speaker 2: playing defense here.
38:29
Speaker 4: That's interesting and it's shown add to that three point shooting.
38:32
Speaker 4: So usually speaking, now there's always one outlier. So you're
38:36
Speaker 4: driving right now, I fifteen, don't be screaming the car
38:38
Speaker 4: yelling Gordy, what are you talking about? This guy scored this,
38:41
Speaker 4: I get it, I understand it. But three point shooting,
38:44
Speaker 4: as far as in the playoffs, the defense schematically is
38:47
Speaker 4: so in tuned that they're not gonna let you shoot
38:50
Speaker 4: rainbow threes in the corner. They're going to challenge that
38:53
Speaker 4: corner shot by one technically by by by not leaving
38:57
Speaker 4: that knockdown shooter or three giving only stunt help which
39:01
Speaker 4: recalled your stunt at the dribbler on the ball side
39:04
Speaker 4: and you go back to the corner and run that
39:06
Speaker 4: knockdown shooter off three point line and Jazz basketball yester
39:10
Speaker 4: Year pitcher Joe ingles that guy had a great shot
39:12
Speaker 4: in that corner, that rainbow arc three left handed south poor.
39:16
Speaker 4: It always went in in playoff games. They never left
39:19
Speaker 4: Joe in the corner, so it became a Donovan Mitchell,
39:22
Speaker 4: Rudy Gobert pick and roll game, and eventually that they
39:25
Speaker 4: couldn't finish in some of those games. Also, Yesterdyear I
39:28
Speaker 4: meaning recently Vondanovitch again another knockdown shooter. They never left him.
39:34
Speaker 4: So it's showing its schematically you're able to dig in
39:38
Speaker 4: and take away a team's non strength, and then you've
39:40
Speaker 4: got to be able to count that offensively by one
39:44
Speaker 4: moving the players around. The worst you do ever shown
39:47
Speaker 4: when I coached Ray Allen probably the world's second greatest
39:51
Speaker 4: ever perimeter shooter behind Steph Curry and number three could
39:54
Speaker 4: be underrated. Mark Price could be Oh absolutely, Mark Price,
40:02
Speaker 4: Hey Mark, we love your dog all right because he
40:05
Speaker 4: never got he's such a great shooter. He retired around.
40:09
Speaker 4: He retired after a knee surgery. He had a brilliant career.
40:12
Speaker 4: I get it, So is Klay Thompson. So in playoffs.
40:15
Speaker 4: So what you want to do with Ray Allen type
40:18
Speaker 4: people Steph Curry type people, You don't want to stick
40:22
Speaker 4: him in the corner. You gotta move them around with
40:25
Speaker 4: with we call false action, where there's something going one
40:28
Speaker 4: side of the floor and then there's some sort of
40:30
Speaker 4: screening action opposite to free up the shooter. And that's
40:33
Speaker 4: why Steph Curry, including last night's game the Golden State Warriors,
40:38
Speaker 4: I called him Sewan backscreen junkies. Well, I didn't say Sean.
40:42
Speaker 4: I didn't say backstreet boys. I said backstreet junkies. In
40:45
Speaker 4: case you're wondering, that's when you set backscreens as the
40:48
Speaker 4: world's greatest shooter to free yourself up because it's easy
40:52
Speaker 4: to guard you if you're stationary. A body in motion
40:55
Speaker 4: stays in motion, Sewan. A body of a body in
40:58
Speaker 4: rest stays the rest. You know, said that, Sean Newton.
41:02
Speaker 4: That's exactly right, Sean. I knew Sean that your sixth
41:05
Speaker 4: grade teacher taught you well, I could tell. I'm not
41:08
Speaker 4: sure about porta loss in sixth grade teacher or my
41:11
Speaker 4: teacher was a nun back in sixth grade a thousand
41:14
Speaker 4: years ago where they forced you to learn that premise.
41:17
Speaker 2: You get that, you get that answer wrong, rap on
41:20
Speaker 2: the knuckles with the ruler.
41:22
Speaker 4: You're being kind worse than that. Who knows? Yeah, thank
41:25
Speaker 4: god it was only capital punishment.
41:27
Speaker 5: All right.
41:28
Speaker 2: Let's talk about last night's game, Gordon. I know you
41:30
Speaker 2: were there with your setup, with your notes in front
41:33
Speaker 2: of you and watching this. This jazz team try to
41:36
Speaker 2: take on a warrior squad that may or may not
41:39
Speaker 2: be We'll get to this may or may not be
41:40
Speaker 2: in the market for the services of one Greek freak
41:43
Speaker 2: Yannis Santetun Kumpo will get there, but one four the
41:48
Speaker 2: final score. Steph Curry with twenty seven points. He hit
41:52
Speaker 2: only four of his ten three points. I say only facetiously.
41:56
Speaker 2: Ace Bailey was tied with Kante George for as started lead.
42:01
Speaker 2: They both had nineteen points. Bryce Sensiba outscored any of
42:04
Speaker 2: the starters. He came off the bench for twenty two,
42:07
Speaker 2: but ultimately a losing effort for the Jazz.
42:09
Speaker 4: Yes, and with that said that, the Jazz allowed twenty
42:14
Speaker 4: three made threes. At halftime it was fifteen and it
42:19
Speaker 4: sounds really in a weird way. Steph Curry only played average.
42:22
Speaker 4: I then we scored twenty seven points, but it wasn't
42:24
Speaker 4: really dynamic. This that shows how great he is, where
42:27
Speaker 4: twenty seven wasn't dynamic. However, everyone else was. The Warriors
42:31
Speaker 4: had eight guys in double figures, eight and so it
42:36
Speaker 4: was a magnificent how they played. Now, guess for a second,
42:39
Speaker 4: let's give kudos to Ace Balley. Aces really coming along
42:44
Speaker 4: last night's game show's alluding to nineteen points he gets
42:47
Speaker 4: seven boys. Let's not forget showing he turns twenty on
42:51
Speaker 4: August sixth of this year, twenty twenty six, so he's
42:53
Speaker 4: doing it as a nineteen year old guy this year
42:56
Speaker 4: for the month of January, so January twenty twenty six,
43:01
Speaker 4: which ends tomorrow, thirty days in January. I remember, right,
43:05
Speaker 4: all right? Ace is averaging this month thirteen point nine
43:09
Speaker 4: points per game, forty nine point two from the field,
43:12
Speaker 4: four point one rebounds in twenty seven point nine minutes.
43:15
Speaker 4: So he's absolutely trending up. And as the fifth pick
43:18
Speaker 4: of the draft the Jazz, that pick was absolutely wonderful
43:23
Speaker 4: because pitchrim in a playoff game showing five years from
43:27
Speaker 4: now with that guy, with his talent and now with
43:30
Speaker 4: more experience each passing year, he's going to be a
43:32
Speaker 4: twenty point scorer because one is talent and he can shoot,
43:36
Speaker 4: and also he's learning how to play the NBA game,
43:38
Speaker 4: and it seems to me he's very receptive to coaching.
43:42
Speaker 4: So that was a last night's game. That was part
43:44
Speaker 4: of what I took away from it. Moses Moody from
43:47
Speaker 4: the Golden State Warriors. He's vastly underrated and the way
43:53
Speaker 4: he plays. Brandon Pajinski is vastly underrated, the Anthony Melton
44:00
Speaker 4: vastly underrated, g A. Santo, the Brazilian guys, underrated. Will Richard,
44:05
Speaker 4: who was the was the teammate of Walter Clayton with
44:09
Speaker 4: Florida Gates National champions last year was also very vastly underrated.
44:16
Speaker 4: So they have a bunch of guys that are U
44:19
Speaker 4: I'll call him two guards, small forwards and stretched forwards
44:23
Speaker 4: that really complement everybody. Johnathan Kaminga, Sean did they trade him?
44:28
Speaker 4: He's a part of a trade. He wants out badly.
44:30
Speaker 4: We're gonna know so next Thursday for the listeners, that's
44:33
Speaker 4: the trading deadline, and they all start probably on Monday
44:37
Speaker 4: morning showing where everybody's more serious. Right now, it's just
44:40
Speaker 4: all conjecture.
44:42
Speaker 2: All right, we got to take a break here, but
44:44
Speaker 2: I want to talk about that specific case Kaminga. He
44:49
Speaker 2: wants out, but he wants out of one of the
44:50
Speaker 2: most respected team cultures and organizations in the NBA, and
44:54
Speaker 2: I want to know how the rest of the NBA
44:56
Speaker 2: looks at that. So we'll get there with Gordy Chiz
44:59
Speaker 2: in three minutes. Don't go anywhere. It's the Sean O'Connell
45:02
Speaker 2: Show on ESPN seven.
45:15
Speaker 6: That's Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN seven.
45:33
Speaker 2: Ninety Twoe FM. Farmer's Insurance Open from San Diego, California.
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Speaker 2: Matt Reiserman is four under Eric Cole is three under.
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Speaker 2: Mac mac meisner is two under through round one. Our
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Speaker 2: by Worldwide Golf. Gordy Chaza here in studio with us,
46:12
Speaker 2: and we were before the break. We were talking about
46:15
Speaker 2: Jazz just played the Golden State Warriors. The Golden State
46:17
Speaker 2: Warriors victorious in that one, and they're looking at potentially
46:22
Speaker 2: a little roster reconstruction as the trade deadline approaches. Jonathan
46:27
Speaker 2: Kaminga did not play against the Utah Jazz. I don't
46:30
Speaker 2: think he's gonna play before he is traded somewhere by
46:33
Speaker 2: the Golden State Warriors. He is asked out. They've had
46:36
Speaker 2: a hard time with him for the last couple of years,
46:39
Speaker 2: and it seems like that relationship is heading towards its termination.
46:44
Speaker 2: And in Gordy, that brought up for me the question
46:47
Speaker 2: I was asking before we went to break and I
46:49
Speaker 2: want to give you a chance to answer it. Now.
46:51
Speaker 2: Jonathan Kaminga has not found a harmonious relationship in San Francisco.
46:59
Speaker 2: And I know this is normal in the NBA. I
47:03
Speaker 2: know that fit matters and all that kind of stuff.
47:05
Speaker 2: I'm curious as to how the rest of the league
47:07
Speaker 2: perceives it when you're like, I want out of the
47:10
Speaker 2: Golden State Warriors, which is an organization that for the
47:14
Speaker 2: last decade now plus has been kind of the gold
47:17
Speaker 2: standard for team chemistry, for culture, for we can bring
47:23
Speaker 2: anybody here and they're gonna fit in and we're gonna
47:25
Speaker 2: work it around. I mean, they coexisted with Draymond Green,
47:29
Speaker 2: and even Jimmy Butler has fit in well there after
47:31
Speaker 2: being a malcontent to other places. So if you're asking
47:34
Speaker 2: out of Golden State and that franchise, how does the
47:37
Speaker 2: NBA treat.
47:38
Speaker 4: It with hesitation? However, that most of the teams would
47:47
Speaker 4: be very guarded of taking him on because of his
47:50
Speaker 4: his contract really relatively tame. It's up this year, but
47:54
Speaker 4: it just takes one to two or three teams that
47:57
Speaker 4: really are were I call it rogan that they think
48:01
Speaker 4: they can rehab somebody as far as with our team,
48:04
Speaker 4: he'll play much better and he's a better fit for us,
48:06
Speaker 4: et cetera. Philip Blanks and how they rationalize it at
48:09
Speaker 4: the personal meetings. So they're going to try to trade
48:12
Speaker 4: him to see if they can get Usually when you
48:15
Speaker 4: trade most times now when you trade on the deadline,
48:18
Speaker 4: you don't get equal value, but you want to move
48:20
Speaker 4: him on or acquire him to get him ready for
48:23
Speaker 4: the following season. Now we camminger right now. Besides not playing,
48:27
Speaker 4: he's actually hurt Sewan. He's got a left knee a
48:30
Speaker 4: bone bruce. But that that will not affect any team
48:33
Speaker 4: as far as it's not structurally. It's more of contusion.
48:36
Speaker 4: So they'll they'll they'll try to move him on. The
48:39
Speaker 4: question is when his contract is up. This year, he
48:41
Speaker 4: makes twenty two point five million in NBA terms. That's
48:45
Speaker 4: why where he should be as far as his talent level.
48:48
Speaker 4: Next year. It's a team option. So whoever it's, whoever
48:51
Speaker 4: there's trade for him. They're saying philosophically that we can
48:54
Speaker 4: resign him for a longer term contract come July first now,
48:58
Speaker 4: so they're going to try to They're going to try
49:01
Speaker 4: to move them on if they can't, then they'll they're
49:03
Speaker 4: going to do over again the week before week during
49:06
Speaker 4: the NBA Draft, the third week of June historically, So
49:09
Speaker 4: it's it's really it's really fascinating as far as what
49:13
Speaker 4: teams are trying to do. Generally speaking, Sewan that the
49:17
Speaker 4: thirty NBA teams, twenty teams, everyone's talking all thirty, but
49:21
Speaker 4: only only ten teams are really serious about trading now.
49:25
Speaker 4: Part of that some some teams trade players and some
49:29
Speaker 4: teams only trade contracts. It's a big difference between a
49:33
Speaker 4: player and a contract, where I'll trade you this bad contract.
49:38
Speaker 4: They get ready to move on this guy, You trade
49:40
Speaker 4: me your team's bad contract, and then we'll call it.
49:42
Speaker 4: We'll call it even and in July first we'll get
49:45
Speaker 4: a do over with with each each team's new money
49:48
Speaker 4: to get more players here that we want to have
49:51
Speaker 4: a better fit.
49:54
Speaker 2: Steven Adams had season ending surgery on his ankle. How
49:59
Speaker 2: big a loss is that right now for the Houston Rockets.
50:01
Speaker 4: Huge? And the Rockets give them a lot of credit.
50:04
Speaker 4: Those guys they're thirty one and sixteen. I'm pushing twenty
50:09
Speaker 4: eight and seventeen. Part of me the fourth seed and
50:11
Speaker 4: the Rockets are right now in the West, and so
50:15
Speaker 4: let's not forget that they're playing with they're playing also
50:19
Speaker 4: with so many other guys that are injured as far
50:22
Speaker 4: as their lineup, meaning Freddie van Fleet, who's a one
50:25
Speaker 4: time All Star, is a big part of their group
50:27
Speaker 4: right now. So now Steven Adams is out with the
50:29
Speaker 4: surgery on his ankle, and now, so now the question
50:32
Speaker 4: is they have an All Star player, a young guy
50:35
Speaker 4: also tremendous, he's a poor man's Nikolai Jokic, and alf
50:39
Speaker 4: N Chagoon. So now Clint Capella, who they've thought about
50:44
Speaker 4: possibly trading him because other teams want him now will
50:47
Speaker 4: never happen now, So now their two centers will be Chagoon,
50:51
Speaker 4: who's a big man passer, can score the ball inside,
50:54
Speaker 4: make outside shots and makes teammates better. And Clint Cappella
50:58
Speaker 4: is a rimp protector. And then let's not forget. So now,
51:01
Speaker 4: just say one of those guys get hurt between now
51:04
Speaker 4: and the playoffs start. That means that Jeff Green, former
51:08
Speaker 4: jazz man, would suddenly play at age thirty nine. He'll
51:12
Speaker 4: he'll turn here, he'llill turn He'll turn forty on August
51:16
Speaker 4: twenty eighth. Suddenly he's in the playoff game, Uncle Jeff,
51:20
Speaker 4: that's how fragile. Hey, our team is great. We're gonna
51:23
Speaker 4: be great. We're gonna rock them in the playoffs. Oh really,
51:25
Speaker 4: And so when someone gets hurt, everything changes or a
51:28
Speaker 4: guy doesn't play like most people thought that Jeff Green
51:31
Speaker 4: retired three years ago, he might be in a playoff
51:33
Speaker 4: game and make a rainbow jump shot earn his salary
51:36
Speaker 4: in one.
51:37
Speaker 2: In one game, Ken Clint Capella helped the Rockets maintain
51:42
Speaker 2: being the best rebounding team in the NBA. Is he
51:45
Speaker 2: Is he good enough at that portion of the game
51:47
Speaker 2: that they can maintain their status there even without Adams
51:50
Speaker 2: in the lineup.
51:51
Speaker 4: No, the answer is no, he's not. However, so with
51:53
Speaker 4: that said, they have to rebound by committee, so now
51:56
Speaker 4: everyone has to be dogged about it. A class a
51:59
Speaker 4: crack the offensive glass and also boxing out as far
52:03
Speaker 4: as in rebounding, and so you know, he does not.
52:07
Speaker 4: He's more of a shot blocker, rim runner, a high
52:11
Speaker 4: lob acrobatic plays in the lane. So that's again every team,
52:16
Speaker 4: there's no team that's perfect. So every team has certain
52:20
Speaker 4: things that they don't do well. Smart coaching and even
52:23
Speaker 4: better playing is that you'll hide some of those non strengths.
52:26
Speaker 4: But in the playoffs, though, that's when you get exposed. Now,
52:29
Speaker 4: in playoff basketball, most times the rotation goes from eleven
52:33
Speaker 4: players to now eight and a half, and that's when
52:36
Speaker 4: your better players have to be two way players where
52:39
Speaker 4: they've got to guard their position in playoff games. And
52:42
Speaker 4: that's why there's so many There's so many players that
52:46
Speaker 4: really are ultra talented, but they fall short in the
52:49
Speaker 4: playoffs because they don't dig in defensively or they can't
52:53
Speaker 4: make an outside shot. Even in the regular season they're defensive minded,
52:56
Speaker 4: which is commendable, but now they're asked to make knockdown
52:59
Speaker 4: jump shots fourth quarter where the defense doesn't rotate to them,
53:02
Speaker 4: they have wide open threes. The worst thing showing you
53:04
Speaker 4: could ever do in an NBA game is the ball
53:07
Speaker 4: goes swing, swing, swing, pass to an open three point
53:10
Speaker 4: shot and the shots miss. That's last night, Draymond Green.
53:14
Speaker 4: He goes ugly oh for six from threes. He was
53:16
Speaker 4: wide open, but they kept on passing both to them
53:20
Speaker 4: because why because of his status and because there's Steph
53:22
Speaker 4: Curry's brilliance. But in the playoff game, oh for six,
53:26
Speaker 4: get this guy out of here.
53:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll kill you when you keep launching them up
53:31
Speaker 2: and there's nothing to show for it. It's but teams,
53:34
Speaker 2: especially the words, they're willing to live or die by
53:36
Speaker 2: that three point shot.
53:38
Speaker 4: That's their DNA, and that's why they're again they have
53:41
Speaker 4: the world's greatest shooter of doing it, and he used
53:44
Speaker 4: to have Klay Thompson, and so they still they shoot threes.
53:48
Speaker 4: But it's I mentioned earlier. It's those other guys, those
53:52
Speaker 4: guys that know we never talked about wait, not that often. Pajenski,
53:56
Speaker 4: you know, he makes threes, but he has a great
53:58
Speaker 4: drive game. Gary Payton even played last night. He's defensive minder.
54:03
Speaker 4: Moses Moody is a knockdown shooter, but he does guard.
54:06
Speaker 4: Buddy Heel on the team off the bench last night
54:10
Speaker 4: made four to five from threes. Melton, I mean the
54:16
Speaker 4: Anthony Melton gets the ball and he can drive the
54:18
Speaker 4: ball to the basket. Now, will Richard the young the
54:21
Speaker 4: young guy from the Florida Gators. He's a knockdown shooter,
54:24
Speaker 4: also defensive minded. So they've done a good job with
54:27
Speaker 4: their with their late picks right now, and that's why
54:30
Speaker 4: they're still competitive without Jimmy Butler and the malcontent Johnathan
54:35
Speaker 4: Kaminga shown also with the Warriors. That's up again, James Weissman.
54:38
Speaker 4: If the world was perfect, he was the second pick
54:41
Speaker 4: of the draft when when Clay Thompson got hurt and
54:44
Speaker 4: stuff got hurt. Also they picked number two and it
54:48
Speaker 4: didn't work out. So Pitch, you're having the second pick,
54:53
Speaker 4: and that big guy worked out, they'd be right there,
54:56
Speaker 4: still right there, because that's brilliants.
54:59
Speaker 2: Can they do something at this trade deadline to keep
55:02
Speaker 2: them right there? In titled contention will take a break,
55:05
Speaker 2: we'll come back and talk about that. There's decisions being
55:07
Speaker 2: made on two of the biggest stars of the last
55:10
Speaker 2: ten years in the NBA. Giannis, Yes, but also what's
55:13
Speaker 2: going on with Lebron. We'll get there. With Gordy Chias
55:16
Speaker 2: on The Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven, Gordy Chase is
55:40
Speaker 2: still hanging out with us here in our Broadway studios.
55:42
Speaker 2: On the Sean o'condle show, My dog Rocky also hanging
55:46
Speaker 2: out with us here, just sleeping under the broadcast desk.
55:49
Speaker 2: It's he's really adopted this as his home base. I
55:52
Speaker 2: enjoy it. Quite a bit after the chaos of my
55:58
Speaker 2: dog and Spencer's dog being in Staro at the same
56:00
Speaker 2: time yesterday and Spen's opening that door and letting him
56:03
Speaker 2: run around the office. We will prevent that from happening
56:07
Speaker 2: at least another time, all right, Gordy, So trade deadline approaching,
56:11
Speaker 2: We've been talking about it, will continue to talk about it.
56:14
Speaker 2: We'll then talk about the fallout from whatever moves happened.
56:17
Speaker 2: But it seems like the largest domino that will potentially
56:21
Speaker 2: fall is the Greek frank Gianna sant ANTMPO is preparing
56:27
Speaker 2: for an exit from a Milwaukee Bucks franchise where he
56:31
Speaker 2: has been a model citizen, a great member of that community.
56:34
Speaker 2: Obviously brought them a championship and a league MVP. I mean,
56:38
Speaker 2: this is an unbelievable era of Milwaukee basketball that appears
56:45
Speaker 2: like it might be coming to an end. Where's he
56:48
Speaker 2: going to be?
56:53
Speaker 4: I think it's gonna be possibly Miami interesting, possibly, which
56:59
Speaker 4: involves then he and other people involved in plus draft picks.
57:04
Speaker 4: Possibly Knickerbockers call Anthony Towns. Possibly they're moving on from him.
57:11
Speaker 4: And there'll be one other surprises as far as teams,
57:15
Speaker 4: But those are the two that would make sense as
57:17
Speaker 4: far as where they would have to trade relatively not
57:22
Speaker 4: star players, but really good players. So example, the Golden
57:26
Speaker 4: State Warriors people reporting that they were again the Bucks.
57:30
Speaker 4: Once they trade Giannis, they're gonna they're starting over. If
57:33
Speaker 4: they don't, if they even with Co Anthony Towns, So
57:36
Speaker 4: they want to build through the draft. Now they had
57:39
Speaker 4: the one, they had the one window for three four
57:41
Speaker 4: years where they had success. They tried them. They tried
57:44
Speaker 4: Dame Lillard. It didn't work out now because the Dame
57:47
Speaker 4: could be got hurt. And so now they're they're starting
57:50
Speaker 4: over without even saying it. So the Golden State Warriors,
57:54
Speaker 4: they would love to have Giannis and their team go forward.
57:57
Speaker 4: So which means that Jimmy Butler or if that surgery
58:00
Speaker 4: who try to move him and other people plus first
58:03
Speaker 4: round picks involved right now, so we'll we will know
58:07
Speaker 4: come and show. We'll be on the air, you know,
58:10
Speaker 4: next Thursday, and so we'll we'll know more about what's
58:13
Speaker 4: gonna happen right now. It all starts with intensity on
58:16
Speaker 4: Monday morning. That's what it really gets get. It really
58:18
Speaker 4: gets going. As far as everybody, I saw.
58:21
Speaker 2: A mock trade that was something like kaminga and four
58:26
Speaker 2: first round picks and what and then you would get
58:30
Speaker 2: Giannis and Kyle Kuzma back. Do we see the Kuzma
58:37
Speaker 2: is part of a trade piece?
58:38
Speaker 4: You think, yes, you be part of it also, right
58:40
Speaker 4: exactly because there's enough talent that people want him on
58:44
Speaker 4: their team, but the Bucks aren't winning. So kaminga, Jimmy Butler,
58:49
Speaker 4: all those guys who said the Warriors point of view
58:51
Speaker 4: that they're all they're all being involved. But everyone wants
58:54
Speaker 4: to try to get a draft capital because draft capital
58:57
Speaker 4: rules as far as we want a future first round
59:00
Speaker 4: pick and or picks. And that's when it comes very
59:04
Speaker 4: very interesting with teams how it all plays out with them.
59:08
Speaker 4: And so again, if you if you're a losing team
59:10
Speaker 4: and you're you're not winning or you're underperforming, you want
59:13
Speaker 4: to try you want to try to get rid of
59:15
Speaker 4: some of your players so that so that you can
59:19
Speaker 4: build through the draft. As far as playing it, I'll
59:21
Speaker 4: give you an example like remember just think about last season.
59:25
Speaker 4: Remember last season with the Jazz and the trading deadline.
59:28
Speaker 4: People forget what happened. The Jazz are quite Jellen Hood
59:32
Speaker 4: Saphino and they cut him right away. The Jazz are
59:36
Speaker 4: quite also Mo Bomba and PJ. Tucker, and they cut
59:40
Speaker 4: him right away, and then the Jazz are quiet. They
59:42
Speaker 4: acquired a two twenty five second round draft pick, which
59:46
Speaker 4: they traded again two twenty five second round draft pick
59:49
Speaker 4: and a two thirty second round draft pick, and so
59:52
Speaker 4: it also acquired Kenyon Martin. So the Jazz will be
59:55
Speaker 4: in played as far as trying to help a team
59:58
Speaker 4: make a three way trade. Z some assets, and you
1:00:01
Speaker 4: want to get some assets back right now. So don't
1:00:02
Speaker 4: be surprised if the Jazz makes some minor moves even
1:00:06
Speaker 4: with some of their players, because everybody wants possibly George
1:00:10
Speaker 4: ni Yang. I know he hasn't played right now, but
1:00:12
Speaker 4: he's out there shooting right there. He could help a
1:00:14
Speaker 4: playoff team as far as being a knockdown shooter coming
1:00:17
Speaker 4: off the bench right now. So Kyle Anderson could help
1:00:20
Speaker 4: a team. So the Jazz could make some minor trades
1:00:24
Speaker 4: to try to help a team get a bigger move
1:00:28
Speaker 4: for those two other for the franchises, while the Jazz
1:00:32
Speaker 4: keep acquiring draft capitol.
1:00:34
Speaker 2: While the Jazz are thinking about, like you said, these
1:00:37
Speaker 2: minor moves, and George Nyang, I think is a good
1:00:39
Speaker 2: example of what we're talking about here is he's as valuable,
1:00:43
Speaker 2: maybe more valuable for what he is in the locker
1:00:45
Speaker 2: room and in practice than what he is on the floor,
1:00:48
Speaker 2: certainly right now because he hasn't played. But this is
1:00:51
Speaker 2: the second youngest team in the league, the Utah Jazz
1:00:54
Speaker 2: and veteran leadership, veteran experience, veteran anything. Is that a
1:00:58
Speaker 2: premium in organization like that? Is? Is the price for
1:01:03
Speaker 2: George Niang more expensive relatively because he is a veteran
1:01:07
Speaker 2: guy that does benefit this franchise with that experience, or
1:01:11
Speaker 2: because you have you know, Lowry's somewhat of a veteran now,
1:01:15
Speaker 2: but you have like a Kevin Love, or you have
1:01:18
Speaker 2: enough that can fill that gap if George Nyang is
1:01:22
Speaker 2: gone that you don't have to treat it that way, correct.
1:01:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, if George was traded out of strength to try
1:01:28
Speaker 4: to try to get acquire more draft capital, that Kevin Love,
1:01:33
Speaker 4: if he still remains here, would be the main guy
1:01:37
Speaker 4: as far as him and Larry Markin. And Larry Markin
1:01:40
Speaker 4: is a quiet personality and that's good, but he has
1:01:42
Speaker 4: a loud game, which is really positive. So that guy
1:01:45
Speaker 4: is a tremendous player. Larry markining, we really the leaders
1:01:48
Speaker 4: should be Kiante George because he has the ball often
1:01:52
Speaker 4: in the game, and he's a solid player, and that
1:01:54
Speaker 4: he would eventually he should be the team leader by
1:01:58
Speaker 4: his skills and by being vote. Also, let's not forget
1:02:01
Speaker 4: that Steve High look last one value too, because again
1:02:05
Speaker 4: he's a veteran. Especially if someone gets hurt between showing
1:02:09
Speaker 4: between now and next Thursday, there's some injury with a
1:02:13
Speaker 4: tow off the bench performer and it's suddenly the things
1:02:17
Speaker 4: change because that guy's out for the season, and now
1:02:19
Speaker 4: let's trade for so and so.
1:02:22
Speaker 2: How many times, Gordon, your many seasons in and around
1:02:25
Speaker 2: the NBA did you have you know, you're you're working
1:02:28
Speaker 2: with the front office, in a front office, in a
1:02:30
Speaker 2: in a coaching office where you kind of think you
1:02:33
Speaker 2: have the lay of the land in your franchise. All Right,
1:02:35
Speaker 2: we've got, you know, this draft piece, We've got this
1:02:38
Speaker 2: guy who we know is really good, and maybe we're
1:02:41
Speaker 2: gonna have to be active when the trade deadline comes
1:02:44
Speaker 2: this year because uh, you know, we're missing this or
1:02:47
Speaker 2: we need that. But then those expectations don't end up
1:02:51
Speaker 2: being the case. Once you start to play, I asked
1:02:54
Speaker 2: this question because Keyante George has altered the outlook for
1:02:58
Speaker 2: this franchise in some ways. Conte George is now playing
1:03:02
Speaker 2: a role and playing in a way that a lot
1:03:05
Speaker 2: of people never expected that he would, and even the
1:03:07
Speaker 2: people that expected he might be able to do that
1:03:09
Speaker 2: probably didn't think he was going to flip the switch
1:03:11
Speaker 2: he has here in the twenty twenty five twenty twenty
1:03:14
Speaker 2: six season, So in a good way, it alters the
1:03:19
Speaker 2: path of your roster, and it alters the timeline of
1:03:22
Speaker 2: this rebuild and things like that. How many times have
1:03:25
Speaker 2: you been on a staff or been in an organization
1:03:29
Speaker 2: or that's how it plays out where that's what like,
1:03:31
Speaker 2: how common is this.
1:03:34
Speaker 4: Rarely? It's really really it's very very rarely common with
1:03:37
Speaker 4: the Count de George, to his credits his third year
1:03:40
Speaker 4: and he has emerged so again as always, just like
1:03:45
Speaker 4: in real life, at what eight does the person mature?
1:03:48
Speaker 4: Is it? Is it twenty two, is it twenty seven,
1:03:52
Speaker 4: is it thirty seven, or is it never? And that's
1:03:54
Speaker 4: what happened. He's maturing right now, I'm sure both on
1:03:57
Speaker 4: and off the court. He's making really great decisions on
1:04:00
Speaker 4: the court, and that he's really improved, and that changes
1:04:03
Speaker 4: the jazz calculus as far as they might not need
1:04:07
Speaker 4: that position as much as they might have thought, as
1:04:11
Speaker 4: far as in the meetings and as always they're always
1:04:13
Speaker 4: trying to acquire better depth. And that's why it's so
1:04:16
Speaker 4: important player development at every level. Can you fast accelerate
1:04:21
Speaker 4: a player's skill set and can the experience kick in
1:04:24
Speaker 4: at what point? And so much is showing is based
1:04:27
Speaker 4: on also your teammates, So your teammates help you play better.
1:04:31
Speaker 4: So who's next to you on the court, who is
1:04:33
Speaker 4: the guy setting for you that that high pick and
1:04:36
Speaker 4: roll screen that gives count A George a chance to
1:04:39
Speaker 4: catching fire? And just think about the jazz the way
1:04:42
Speaker 4: of destructure right now. Yusuf Nurkice. I know he's had
1:04:45
Speaker 4: that triple double tool last night, but he's also a
1:04:47
Speaker 4: very valuable screener. So with that big body, and that
1:04:50
Speaker 4: we call why screening action comes flying off Lowry market
1:04:54
Speaker 4: and indoor account A George. That is very important part
1:04:57
Speaker 4: of why those guys are scoring a lot more and
1:04:59
Speaker 4: with morefficiency because of the screening game. Houston Rockets makes
1:05:02
Speaker 4: for a about Steven Adams, one of the best screeners
1:05:05
Speaker 4: in the NBA. So suddenly all those guys with the
1:05:09
Speaker 4: rockets when they get that ball. Because if Steven Adams
1:05:11
Speaker 4: says that almost like that, that that New Zealand rocket
1:05:16
Speaker 4: Gibraltar screen where it's almost impossible, and just yesteryear, that
1:05:20
Speaker 4: was Mark Eaton. It's part of John, part of John
1:05:24
Speaker 4: Stockton's brilliance, which is which is self by himself. However
1:05:29
Speaker 4: he was aided by his teammates, including Mark Eaton. So
1:05:32
Speaker 4: bitching right now, Mark Eaton setting a screen at seven
1:05:35
Speaker 4: four thurnget and five pounds a legal screen and erection
1:05:38
Speaker 4: the defense to try and navigate over around that screening action,
1:05:42
Speaker 4: and that gives the dribbler or the cutter daylight. That
1:05:45
Speaker 4: split second of getting daylight in a game makes you
1:05:49
Speaker 4: makes the game slowed down for you to make a
1:05:51
Speaker 4: better decision and be more efficient, whether it's a jump shot,
1:05:54
Speaker 4: whether it's a rim strike, or whether it's who are
1:05:57
Speaker 4: shooting over the top of a three point shot. So
1:06:00
Speaker 4: screening is absolutely important, and that's why Kyant Dee George,
1:06:04
Speaker 4: to his credit, he's getting some good screens from his
1:06:07
Speaker 4: flowmates and that's why he's able to really accelerate his
1:06:11
Speaker 4: growth and from a franchise point of view now showing
1:06:14
Speaker 4: the contract is relatively teamed right now, and I'm sure
1:06:17
Speaker 4: that Jazz will give him the extension when the time
1:06:20
Speaker 4: comes out.
1:06:23
Speaker 2: Lebron James got emotional the Cleveland Cavaliers played a little
1:06:26
Speaker 2: tribute video for him. Calves ended up smashing the Lakers
1:06:31
Speaker 2: in that game one twenty nine to ninety nine. And
1:06:36
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of people think this is
1:06:38
Speaker 2: the last time Lebron James is going to play in Cleveland,
1:06:40
Speaker 2: that maybe this is the final year of his career,
1:06:43
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. We saw the emotion, but Lebron
1:06:47
Speaker 2: has prone to be effusive, emotional, demonstrative at times. What
1:06:54
Speaker 2: did you make of that reaction to his tribute video.
1:06:57
Speaker 2: I think it was sincere.
1:06:58
Speaker 4: You know, he's in Ohio, he's homegrown, the Calves of
1:07:01
Speaker 4: his childhood team, and he had some great moments there
1:07:06
Speaker 4: and he led them to their only championship in the
1:07:09
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen and I think it was it was real
1:07:12
Speaker 4: and like all players, especially Lebron type, it's coming to
1:07:18
Speaker 4: the end, and is the end this year or the
1:07:21
Speaker 4: following season. I mean, let's say let's give the math
1:07:23
Speaker 4: right now, right now, he's forty one years young, and
1:07:27
Speaker 4: to have this twenty third season in the NBA, to
1:07:30
Speaker 4: play that long and that well is remarkable, And that's
1:07:35
Speaker 4: what his mind is going through as he sees himself,
1:07:39
Speaker 4: you know, twenty years ago when he's playing for the
1:07:40
Speaker 4: Caves as a very young person and now he's an
1:07:43
Speaker 4: elder statesman.
1:07:45
Speaker 2: Now.
1:07:45
Speaker 4: From the Lakers point of view is that Lebron Lebron's
1:07:50
Speaker 4: contract is fifty two point six willion this year and
1:07:53
Speaker 4: his contract is up, so so far there's been very
1:07:58
Speaker 4: little discussion about him resigning him. Now we'll see how
1:08:03
Speaker 4: it plays out. We all know his agent, Rich Paul
1:08:06
Speaker 4: will Clutch Sports. He's gonna he's gonna try to get
1:08:09
Speaker 4: the best situation for Lebron if he decides to play.
1:08:13
Speaker 2: Should we be taking the lack of news about an
1:08:17
Speaker 2: extension as an impending retirement as the Lakers not interested
1:08:24
Speaker 2: in having a player of his age and contribution be
1:08:27
Speaker 2: part of their organization moving forward now that they've got
1:08:30
Speaker 2: some young talent and it's Lucas team now and and
1:08:33
Speaker 2: Reeves has proved to be really good, how should we
1:08:36
Speaker 2: read the tea leaves of Lebron and the Lakers not
1:08:40
Speaker 2: being publicly in talks of extending.
1:08:41
Speaker 4: Him, that the Lakers probably are gonna move on from him. Probably, yeah.
1:08:48
Speaker 4: And remember with Lebron, you have to pay Austin Reeves
1:08:52
Speaker 4: and deservingly so because he's part of the future. So
1:08:55
Speaker 4: we just just from the narrative, probably Austin Reeves is
1:08:59
Speaker 4: gonna make starting roughly forty million dollars. Will say my
1:09:04
Speaker 4: math this forty million dollars times of four or five years. Okay,
1:09:10
Speaker 4: So in the Lakers have a lot of guys in
1:09:13
Speaker 4: one year contracts, So the Lakers could have one hundred
1:09:16
Speaker 4: million dollars next summer. Forty million will go to Austin Reeves.
1:09:20
Speaker 4: The other sixty million they can try to get the
1:09:23
Speaker 4: guys that they need a younger version to help them
1:09:27
Speaker 4: remain relative in the in the very very tough West,
1:09:32
Speaker 4: remember La Lakers. There are there are franchise that's based
1:09:38
Speaker 4: on star power. So think about the Lakers, elgind Baylor,
1:09:43
Speaker 4: Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Lebron, James,
1:09:54
Speaker 4: Luca Dantage. So they do star power better than anybody
1:09:58
Speaker 4: else in the NBA. And sometimes when there's things a
1:10:02
Speaker 4: little bit wayward being in La. In Hollywood, Hollywood does
1:10:06
Speaker 4: drama very well. It's perfectly normal and uh LA to
1:10:11
Speaker 4: have drama. It's no big deal whether you whether the
1:10:14
Speaker 4: movie industry, or whether it's the NFL, whether it's Major
1:10:17
Speaker 4: League Baseball with the with the Dodgers, it's uh it's
1:10:21
Speaker 4: irrelevant that drama is all part of being in Hollywood.
1:10:25
Speaker 2: Uh Luca turned his ankle because of that. Well, maybe
1:10:29
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say because of it. To me, it seems
1:10:31
Speaker 2: like because of that elevated court that the Cavs have. Yeah,
1:10:35
Speaker 2: how how are we playing with this in modern NBA basketball?
1:10:39
Speaker 4: No, you're exactly right. So if the Jones alluding to
1:10:42
Speaker 4: that the court, the court is slightly above where the
1:10:46
Speaker 4: coach's seats are with the players seats are, so the
1:10:49
Speaker 4: seats for the where the players and coaches and training
1:10:52
Speaker 4: where they sit and tenant step down. That's exactly right.
1:10:56
Speaker 4: And Sean, when I coached for for twenty years there,
1:10:59
Speaker 4: I was very conscious of that that please don't slip
1:11:03
Speaker 4: like a schmuck like me, don't slip on the thing
1:11:05
Speaker 4: and rip my achilles because I yelled at I was
1:11:09
Speaker 4: yelling out the team defense to Adam Keeper where to
1:11:12
Speaker 4: get back and recovery and to stop the ball, and
1:11:15
Speaker 4: that's what happened. So Lucas slipped and he got slightly injured,
1:11:19
Speaker 4: which shows you that the But I know the NBA
1:11:23
Speaker 4: they I'm sure they wanted to address that, but forever
1:11:26
Speaker 4: reason hasn't come to fruition. Right now, so it's elevated, Sean.
1:11:31
Speaker 4: I thought that every field should be the same, and
1:11:34
Speaker 4: except in baseball, you know, Ridley feel part of the
1:11:37
Speaker 4: outfield of Famway Park, but as far as the playing service,
1:11:41
Speaker 4: it should be all universal.
1:11:42
Speaker 2: So my understanding is, and I, like probably everyone else
1:11:47
Speaker 2: in America, was looking this up. After you see someone
1:11:50
Speaker 2: of Luca's prominence get hurt because of that, you look
1:11:56
Speaker 2: at Okay, why is it like that? It wasn't always
1:11:58
Speaker 2: like that? Why is it like that? It's like that
1:12:01
Speaker 2: because of NHL not NHL ice Ahl ice underneath the floor. Now,
1:12:07
Speaker 2: if Ryan Smith told me that he had to do
1:12:10
Speaker 2: this with the Utah Jazz floor to accommodate the mammoth
1:12:14
Speaker 2: about Oh that's a tough all right, I get it.
1:12:17
Speaker 2: Your NHL team's bringing in just as much as your
1:12:20
Speaker 2: NBA team, right, now, and your NHL team is actually
1:12:23
Speaker 2: a little bit further along in their development. So like
1:12:25
Speaker 2: if you have to do something that's not great on
1:12:27
Speaker 2: the NBA side to accommodate the NHL, all right, I'll
1:12:30
Speaker 2: listen to that. We're not talking about an NHL team.
1:12:33
Speaker 2: We're talking about the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League.
1:12:38
Speaker 2: This is minor league hockey. This is triple A stuff here,
1:12:42
Speaker 2: and you're potentially hurting Luka Doncic to accommodate that that
1:12:47
Speaker 2: it feels like, just from a legal financial business standpoint,
1:12:52
Speaker 2: it makes zero sense.
1:12:54
Speaker 4: I'm sure they're going to readjust that right now. As
1:12:56
Speaker 4: far as uh look at it differently after this injury. Also,
1:13:00
Speaker 4: the cabalists players Olojis, that could have been Lebron James
1:13:03
Speaker 4: getting hurt when he played for the Caps all those times,
1:13:06
Speaker 4: o'karie irving, and so your your home team's also at
1:13:09
Speaker 4: ris as far as doing that.
1:13:11
Speaker 2: Also, we've seen this year how quickly and how effectively
1:13:17
Speaker 2: arena changes can happen. You can It's not something you
1:13:21
Speaker 2: can fix today right now during this twenty twenty five
1:13:25
Speaker 2: twenty twenty sixth season, but it could absolutely not be
1:13:28
Speaker 2: an issue for twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty six, twenty
1:13:31
Speaker 2: twenty seven. You could get it fixed in a single
1:13:34
Speaker 2: off season, no doubt.
1:13:35
Speaker 4: Oh, no doubt very much. So the question is will
1:13:38
Speaker 4: they Let's let's let's stay tuned and see if it
1:13:41
Speaker 4: plays out.
1:13:43
Speaker 2: What's your list today, Gordon?
1:13:44
Speaker 4: My list today, as also weekend is heading very soon
1:13:50
Speaker 4: in California, meaning la on February thirteenth, I'm sorry, February
1:13:57
Speaker 4: excise me, yeah, February thirteenth and Friday and Sunday February fifteenth.
1:14:02
Speaker 4: I was off for a second. I was looking at
1:14:04
Speaker 4: my looking at January right now. So this list today
1:14:07
Speaker 4: is the last ten years of All Star Weekend three
1:14:11
Speaker 4: point Contest winners, Yes, three point contest winners, as the
1:14:17
Speaker 4: dunk contest has lost some of its glamor the last
1:14:21
Speaker 4: we'll say twenty years, even though sometimes it is exciting,
1:14:25
Speaker 4: but generally speaking that people are saying the best dunkers
1:14:28
Speaker 4: aren't in it. The three point shooting contest is a
1:14:31
Speaker 4: whole different thing, all right. So here's the last ten years.
1:14:35
Speaker 4: The winner twenty sixteen Klay Thompson with the Warriors. It
1:14:41
Speaker 4: was done in Toronto, twenty seventeen Eric Gordon of the
1:14:45
Speaker 4: Rockets was done in New Orleans twenty eighteen. Devin Booker
1:14:51
Speaker 4: of the Suns that was in La twenty nineteen. Joe
1:14:55
Speaker 4: Harris of the Nets that was in Charlotte, North Carolina
1:14:59
Speaker 4: twenty He played Last Night versus the Jazz Buddy Heel
1:15:03
Speaker 4: of the Kings that was in Chicago twenty twenty one. Yes,
1:15:08
Speaker 4: Steph Curry of the Warriors did it in Atlanta twenty
1:15:12
Speaker 4: and twenty two. Interesting, this guy is a big guy
1:15:15
Speaker 4: seven footer. Yes, call Anthony Towns of that time. The
1:15:20
Speaker 4: Timberwolves won it in Cleveland twenty twenty three. We restayed great,
1:15:25
Speaker 4: the pride of Augden, Utah, the pride of Oakland, California.
1:15:29
Speaker 4: Dame Lillard of the Trailblazers did it here in Salt
1:15:32
Speaker 4: Lake City in twenty twenty three. Twenty twenty four, Dame again,
1:15:38
Speaker 4: this time with the Bucks and Indianapolis was the winner.
1:15:41
Speaker 4: And last year's winner from the Mammy Heat was a
1:15:45
Speaker 4: Tyler Herro and that game was done in San Francisco. Quickly,
1:15:51
Speaker 4: what about the economics of it? Did you know, Sean
1:15:55
Speaker 4: that the winner of the three point shooting contest makes
1:15:57
Speaker 4: sixty thousand dollars, the runner makes forty thousand in the
1:16:01
Speaker 4: third place finisher makes twenty five thousand. Historically, what about
1:16:08
Speaker 4: in jazz basketball, Jeff Hornisack was a two time winner
1:16:14
Speaker 4: of the three point Shooting Contest in nineteen ninety eight
1:16:18
Speaker 4: and also in two thousand. But remember in nineteen ninety
1:16:22
Speaker 4: nine there was no All Star Game because of the
1:16:25
Speaker 4: lockout for the owners and players. They were in a
1:16:28
Speaker 4: labor dispute battle, So Jeff Hornisack might have won three
1:16:32
Speaker 4: in a row. Speaking of three in a row, Larry
1:16:35
Speaker 4: Bird and Craig Hodges are the only people that ever
1:16:39
Speaker 4: won three contests as far as three point shooting. Larry
1:16:44
Speaker 4: Bird did it the first year of the contest in
1:16:47
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty six, which was really forty years ago, nineteen
1:16:51
Speaker 4: eighty seven and nineteen eighty eight, and Craig Hodges of
1:16:55
Speaker 4: the Bulls did it in nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety one,
1:16:59
Speaker 4: and nineteen ninety two. My last point about this, which
1:17:02
Speaker 4: is really so interesting, the question is what is what
1:17:08
Speaker 4: is the most ever made three point shots in the contest?
1:17:12
Speaker 4: Showan what do you think the most ever consecutive three
1:17:15
Speaker 4: point shots made? Porter? What do you think consecutive thirteen.
1:17:20
Speaker 4: All right, thirteen, Porter, what do you think?
1:17:23
Speaker 2: Eight? Eight?
1:17:24
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm glad you. I'm glad you guys. Oh, don't
1:17:27
Speaker 4: work for NASA as far as being scientists and rock
1:17:30
Speaker 4: and ingineered because instead of going to Pluto, were going
1:17:33
Speaker 4: to Mars right now. Yes, the answer is by Craig Hodges.
1:17:37
Speaker 4: He made nineteen straight three point shots in nineteen ninety one,
1:17:41
Speaker 4: nineteen in a row.
1:17:42
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, just I want to be clear, prices, right, rules,
1:17:45
Speaker 2: I won the showcase showdown. I was closer with my thirteen.
1:17:48
Speaker 4: Sorry, So I'm glad you guys don't work for NASA.
1:17:51
Speaker 4: I thank Porter, thank you for working for working for
1:17:55
Speaker 4: ESPN Radio seven hundred. He's hearing's hearing very fashionable Salt
1:18:00
Speaker 4: Lake City.
1:18:01
Speaker 2: So HORNI sack with the only jazz man who won
1:18:04
Speaker 2: a three point content.
1:18:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, Larry Markin was in it but did not did
1:18:07
Speaker 4: not advanced as far as as far as making either one,
1:18:13
Speaker 4: two or three. It's just really it's a skill. It's
1:18:16
Speaker 4: a skill as far as making and also the pressure
1:18:18
Speaker 4: of making those shots. You know, you're a knocked down shooter,
1:18:21
Speaker 4: but it's different in the game and you've got to
1:18:24
Speaker 4: have perfect form to make those shots. And Jeff Hornisack
1:18:27
Speaker 4: one of the all time great shooters. And last night
1:18:30
Speaker 4: Steph Curry put on just made so so many great shots.
1:18:35
Speaker 4: Show them. Before the game. Steph made back to back
1:18:38
Speaker 4: half court shots before the game, you know, his little.
1:18:42
Speaker 2: Warm up routine, shoots from the tunnel and all that stuff.
1:18:44
Speaker 2: Exactly does he do that on the road or only
1:18:46
Speaker 2: at home?
1:18:47
Speaker 4: No, both places home and away, So it's legendary. And
1:18:51
Speaker 4: you know it's packed. So there's probably a thousand fans
1:18:54
Speaker 4: that are courtside with the cameras taking him. He made
1:18:57
Speaker 4: back to back half court shots.
1:18:59
Speaker 2: Wow, the guy's crazy, an absolute joy to watch. Yes,
1:19:04
Speaker 2: he is the only thing I wish. I wish that
1:19:09
Speaker 2: everyone right because everyone wanted to be Steph Curry. I
1:19:13
Speaker 2: wish that people were better at realizing they're not Steph
1:19:15
Speaker 2: Curry because everyone thinks they can be. They pull up,
1:19:18
Speaker 2: they shoot like he does, They shoot when their feet
1:19:21
Speaker 2: aren't set, when they're moving away from the basket, thinking
1:19:25
Speaker 2: that they can have the same kind of success that
1:19:26
Speaker 2: he does. I know he's not deliberately setting a bad example,
1:19:30
Speaker 2: but his greatness has set a bad example for a
1:19:32
Speaker 2: lot of people very much.
1:19:34
Speaker 4: So Showan's alluding to that every level, whether it's great
1:19:37
Speaker 4: school basketball, high school basketball, junior college, Division one, two, three,
1:19:42
Speaker 4: et cetera, or Big bad NBA, is that often people
1:19:46
Speaker 4: are misguided as far as their shooting mentality, where I'll
1:19:50
Speaker 4: just keep shooting until I make it, and that that's
1:19:53
Speaker 4: commendable if you did that in shooting drills, but your
1:19:56
Speaker 4: teammates are saying, what is up with my guy right now?
1:20:00
Speaker 4: Oh my girl as far as keep firing three point shots.
1:20:04
Speaker 4: So sometimes you can, you can. You can shoot recklessly
1:20:08
Speaker 4: and hurt your team to the extreme to get yourself going.
1:20:11
Speaker 4: Long time ago sewing was when that's when John Stalks
1:20:15
Speaker 4: in Game six of the NBA Finals shot two for
1:20:18
Speaker 4: eighteen in the game. Now, all players have bad shooting nights,
1:20:22
Speaker 4: but he went oh for eleven and the Rockets beat
1:20:25
Speaker 4: the Nicrobockers. And that was the night of the O. J.
1:20:28
Speaker 4: Simpsons Chase Sewan on a Friday night, and that that
1:20:32
Speaker 4: that made the Rockets win their first championship. Two for eighteen,
1:20:38
Speaker 4: oh for eleven from threes.
1:20:40
Speaker 2: On Thursdays, we get a full hour of Gordy Chier's
1:20:43
Speaker 2: the courtesy of our friends at America First Credit Union
1:20:45
Speaker 2: and Aladdin Industry. Is your Utah v Lux dealer. What
1:20:49
Speaker 2: a pleasure having you in here again, Gordy, thank you.
1:20:51
Speaker 4: Thanks Sean peace out.
1:20:52
Speaker 2: That's Gordy Chia's The Daily Dump is next. It's the
1:20:55
Speaker 2: Sean O'Connell Show on a Thursday ESPN seven hundred and
1:20:59
Speaker 2: ninety tw one.
1:20:59
Speaker 1: Fl feeling out of the loop. Let's catch up on
1:21:05
Speaker 1: today's biggest headlines. Said about Daily News Dump on the
1:21:09
Speaker 1: Sean O'Connell Show, where we flush out the biggest stories
1:21:12
Speaker 1: of the day on Utah's number one Sports Talk ESPN
1:21:16
Speaker 1: seven hundred and ninety two to one. Alf AM brought
1:21:18
Speaker 1: to you by Bally Plumbing. Just look for the truck
1:21:21
Speaker 1: with the duck.
1:21:28
Speaker 2: Plumbing needs call Valley Plumbing, HVAC needs Collie call Valley Plumbing,
1:21:34
Speaker 2: Heating and Air. They're the same company. They're doing it all.
1:21:37
Speaker 7: Now.
1:21:39
Speaker 2: If you got a furnace issue, you're anticipating maybe an
1:21:42
Speaker 2: air conditioner issue for the spring the summer it was
1:21:47
Speaker 2: coughing and dying when you'd shut it off back in
1:21:50
Speaker 2: the fall. They can handle it all for you. Now,
1:21:54
Speaker 2: look for the truck with the duck Telemosi sent you
1:21:56
Speaker 2: when you give him a call, Porter Larson, Are you
1:22:04
Speaker 2: a white chocolate fan? Not the food, but Jason Williams
1:22:08
Speaker 2: or Mac Damien. I like, I like milk, chocolate, dark chocolate.
1:22:13
Speaker 2: I'm talking about nicknames here. Jason Williams, duve of the
1:22:17
Speaker 2: most famously of the Sacramento Kings in the nineties. You
1:22:22
Speaker 2: a JDub fan?
1:22:23
Speaker 4: Yeah?
1:22:23
Speaker 2: By the way, those Kings teams were really fun. If
1:22:26
Speaker 2: you enjoyed watching the man play basketball, you should spend
1:22:31
Speaker 2: I don't know, like an hour on YouTube or wherever
1:22:35
Speaker 2: and find his legendary run as a podcast guest. The
1:22:39
Speaker 2: guy has some of the best, most hilarious stories sitting
1:22:43
Speaker 2: down with old teammates podcasts. You get him and Vernon
1:22:45
Speaker 2: Maxwell together, it's just like, it's hilarious if you're as
1:22:49
Speaker 2: long as you don't mind a little bit of language.
1:22:51
Speaker 2: Jason Williams has some stories to tell about his time
1:22:55
Speaker 2: in the NBA.
1:22:56
Speaker 3: I think you expect that, maybe from old Jdubb Sure,
1:23:00
Speaker 3: but yeah, he's a he's a phenomenal podcast guest.
1:23:02
Speaker 2: We ought to effort him for this.
1:23:04
Speaker 4: Ye.
1:23:05
Speaker 2: We should try to get him on at some point
1:23:07
Speaker 2: so I know that there's a lot of people out
1:23:09
Speaker 2: there that are fans of Jason Williams. When you hear
1:23:12
Speaker 2: about memorabilia collection, it's it's often like headlines about Lebron James,
1:23:19
Speaker 2: Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal. It's like the big time. It's
1:23:22
Speaker 2: the perennial all star of the Hall of Fame type. Dudes. Uh,
1:23:27
Speaker 2: Jason Williams rookie jersey sold for one hundred and forty
1:23:32
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. You got to be a dedicated J dub
1:23:35
Speaker 2: fan to pay one hundred and forty grand for his
1:23:41
Speaker 2: rookie jersey. Yeah, that's Uh, that's a hefty price that
1:23:45
Speaker 2: you see a game warned by the way. Yeah, it's
1:23:47
Speaker 2: so funny. So you say that because I was like
1:23:49
Speaker 2: to pay as much to pay a house. No, it's not.
1:23:52
Speaker 2: You can't get a house. You can't. You can't even
1:23:55
Speaker 2: get like a one bedroom studio apartment for one hundred
1:23:58
Speaker 2: and forty grand anymore in Utah. Yeah, get the house
1:24:02
Speaker 2: that I grew up in. My parents we moved here
1:24:04
Speaker 2: in ninety two. They paid less than one hundred and
1:24:07
Speaker 2: forty grand for the five bedroom house that I grew
1:24:10
Speaker 2: up in in Sandy Now that's not a reality. Okay,
1:24:13
Speaker 2: we all know that, we all suffer through it together.
1:24:16
Speaker 2: But somewhere this is the price of a home. You
1:24:18
Speaker 2: could get your ten percent down, You can do your
1:24:24
Speaker 2: you can do your whatever. The three percent down required
1:24:28
Speaker 2: for first home, first time home buyer at one hundred
1:24:32
Speaker 2: and forty grand. There you go. I'm sure there's still
1:24:34
Speaker 2: places in America where you can buy a house for this.
1:24:37
Speaker 2: So if you're from there, you have paid the house
1:24:42
Speaker 2: is ransom for a Jason Williams, Rookie Jersey. I actually
1:24:45
Speaker 2: kind of love this, if you're some like I don't
1:24:48
Speaker 2: know why. When I was when I was in third grade,
1:24:51
Speaker 2: I decided that the New York Knicks, and very specifically
1:24:53
Speaker 2: Patrick Ewing, were my favorite thing in basketball, and I
1:24:57
Speaker 2: collected as many Patrick Ewing trading cards as I could find.
1:25:03
Speaker 2: A kid who at that time had never been to
1:25:05
Speaker 2: New York City, had no reason to be connected to
1:25:09
Speaker 2: New York City. Who part of the reason he loved
1:25:11
Speaker 2: Patrick Ewing was because of Georgetown University, another team that
1:25:16
Speaker 2: he had never seen in person, and a city he
1:25:19
Speaker 2: had never at that point been to. But that's just
1:25:22
Speaker 2: the way it works. And I was an avid collector
1:25:25
Speaker 2: of Patrick Ewing stuff for like all of elementary school. Okay, strange, quirky.
1:25:32
Speaker 3: I had similar feelings with Iverson all right, mellow a
1:25:37
Speaker 3: little bit as well. Okay, my late father had like
1:25:42
Speaker 3: every Emitt Smith card I think, known, demand, cool, a
1:25:47
Speaker 3: bunch of them signed and whatnot. So I hear you
1:25:50
Speaker 3: on like the random very specific player or star that
1:25:56
Speaker 3: you go after, or maybe like not so star.
1:25:59
Speaker 2: Now all of those ones we mentioned, right Ewing, Hall
1:26:04
Speaker 2: of Famer, dream teamer, et cetera. The guys that you
1:26:07
Speaker 2: talked about, Hall of Famers, all Stars, perennial all stars. Right,
1:26:12
Speaker 2: Emitt Smith record holder for some people, goat very few people.
1:26:18
Speaker 2: He's the goat, but his numbers were huge, right, Like
1:26:24
Speaker 2: those guys all make sense explaining to your friends, your wife, whatever,
1:26:29
Speaker 2: that you just spent one hundred and forty grand on.
1:26:33
Speaker 2: He's not an obscure player, but he's not exactly like
1:26:36
Speaker 2: first ballot anything. I just spent one hundred and forty
1:26:39
Speaker 2: grand on a Jason Williams Jersey. People are gonna be like, dude,
1:26:43
Speaker 2: I know you're rich, but that's dumb. That's a weird.
1:26:46
Speaker 2: That's a weird thing.
1:26:47
Speaker 3: I hope that Jason sold it. I hope at least
1:26:49
Speaker 3: he was the one that is on the receiving end.
1:26:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he gets it. Crazy trouble in paradise. If
1:26:59
Speaker 2: Denver is paradise, which it's not, Denver is not cool.
1:27:03
Speaker 2: I'm anti Denver, as I've firmly established on the show here.
1:27:08
Speaker 2: There's now a little scuttle butt around the Denver Broncos
1:27:12
Speaker 2: organization that bo Nicks, who had a press conference yesterday,
1:27:16
Speaker 2: had that press conference specifically to refute things that Sean
1:27:21
Speaker 2: Payton said about bon Nix, and very specifically bo Nix's
1:27:24
Speaker 2: ankle injury and even more specifically his history of ankle injuries.
1:27:30
Speaker 2: That bo Nix is like coach, said some stuff. Let
1:27:33
Speaker 2: me set the record straight. This is never a good thing.
1:27:36
Speaker 2: If that's the reason behind why you're communicating with media.
1:27:39
Speaker 2: If there's a disconnect between somebody as important as the
1:27:43
Speaker 2: head coach of a franchise and the starting quarterback of
1:27:45
Speaker 2: a franchise, that is far from ideal. I don't know
1:27:49
Speaker 2: if I'm fully bought into the fact that this is
1:27:53
Speaker 2: evidence of serious problems, But the timing of both Sean
1:27:57
Speaker 2: Payton's comments, some firing and then bon Nick's being like,
1:28:02
Speaker 2: well hold on here, and the tone in which he
1:28:05
Speaker 2: delivered some of these updates, by the way, or people like,
1:28:08
Speaker 2: well what about this, He's like, Sean Payton doesn't actually
1:28:12
Speaker 2: know how many times I've injured my ankle, so you
1:28:14
Speaker 2: shouldn't say that, right.
1:28:16
Speaker 3: He seemed a little annoyed, an odd place to be
1:28:19
Speaker 3: with your your head football coach. My question is if
1:28:23
Speaker 3: this was something that was always going to happen, If
1:28:26
Speaker 3: it was something that was what did John Payton say?
1:28:30
Speaker 3: Uh Like, I can't remember exactly how he worded it,
1:28:35
Speaker 3: but he said it was imminent or something.
1:28:37
Speaker 2: So he was like predisposed or something of that nature.
1:28:41
Speaker 3: The guy that we watched start and play in more
1:28:43
Speaker 3: college football games than anyone ever. Why didn't I don't know.
1:28:49
Speaker 3: I feel like we would have maybe heard something about
1:28:51
Speaker 3: it before if that were the case. And then yeah,
1:28:54
Speaker 3: for your starting quarterback to come out and kind of
1:28:55
Speaker 3: refute what you said a day later seems odd.
1:28:59
Speaker 2: Is this.
1:29:01
Speaker 3: Is this because they, you know, get into a contract
1:29:04
Speaker 3: year and bo Nix doesn't want this to be like
1:29:07
Speaker 3: the main thing. Maybe Sean Payton wants him to be
1:29:11
Speaker 3: less on the market when it comes to the dollar signs.
1:29:14
Speaker 3: I don't know, but definitely definitely odd to not be
1:29:18
Speaker 3: on the same page and to go out and have
1:29:21
Speaker 3: press conferences rather than chatting with each other and then
1:29:25
Speaker 3: maybe going and doing a press conference. It's it's weird.
1:29:28
Speaker 3: Definitely a weird place to be for a head coach
1:29:30
Speaker 3: and a starting quarterback.
1:29:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, what Sean Payton says. I think what was found though,
1:29:36
Speaker 2: was that a condition was like predisposed were referring to
1:29:41
Speaker 2: in a multiple ankle injuries. I mean, and here's the thing.
1:29:45
Speaker 3: If you folks who have sprained their ankle, who have
1:29:49
Speaker 3: had ankle problems, you understand that, yeah, they don't totally
1:29:53
Speaker 3: go away in certain ways. So what was this like
1:29:57
Speaker 3: a maybe an injury that already happened in year. Maybe
1:30:01
Speaker 3: he was nursing a sprained ankle or a some sort
1:30:05
Speaker 3: of strain throughout the year and then this happened. Is
1:30:08
Speaker 3: that what Sean Payton's talked about? Or is this like
1:30:10
Speaker 3: a long term I don't know. If you remember Steph
1:30:13
Speaker 3: Curry early in his career, his ankles were keeping him
1:30:17
Speaker 3: from being what he is.
1:30:18
Speaker 2: I was working on the Warriors flagship station right when
1:30:23
Speaker 2: he was like it was such a funny thing in hindsight.
1:30:27
Speaker 2: And I was working with a guy, Matt Steinmetz who's
1:30:29
Speaker 2: been a guest on the show, but who was like
1:30:31
Speaker 2: he's a Warriors insider, that's his presence in sports media.
1:30:36
Speaker 2: And we were talking about this same Steph Curry as
1:30:40
Speaker 2: like he might end up being a bus because he's
1:30:42
Speaker 2: never able to stay healthy, like he's got like paper ankles.
1:30:47
Speaker 2: And thank goodness, Steph Curry figured it out. Can you
1:30:50
Speaker 2: imagine if we had never seen the good version of
1:30:52
Speaker 2: Steph Curry, the healthy version of Steph Curry.
1:30:54
Speaker 3: And maybe that's all Bo Nicks needs is I don't
1:30:56
Speaker 3: know if you've seen like Steph's equip his shoe in
1:31:02
Speaker 3: his ankle brace. They're like a they're like a one
1:31:05
Speaker 3: piece yeah thing, very high tech, very you know, new age.
1:31:10
Speaker 2: Speaking of that, you know that Steph Curry that you
1:31:13
Speaker 2: know that Steph Curry is now a shoe free agent
1:31:17
Speaker 2: and it's anticipated he's going to be signing with Nike
1:31:21
Speaker 2: for some absurd like nine hundred million dollar deal whatever
1:31:25
Speaker 2: it's going to be. Steph Steph Curry love the guy,
1:31:30
Speaker 2: big fan of Steph Curry, The Steph Curry shoe, the
1:31:34
Speaker 2: Steph Curry under armor shoes are an unwearable, hideous travesty. Yeah,
1:31:38
Speaker 2: they'd never been good looking. You can't. They're just you can't.
1:31:40
Speaker 2: They're just trying to help his ankles. I think, yeah,
1:31:43
Speaker 2: which is honestly wonderful, functionally great, wonderful. I am. I
1:31:48
Speaker 2: am eager to see what Nike cooks up in their
1:31:52
Speaker 2: top secret shoe lab for a Steph Curry signature shoe,
1:31:56
Speaker 2: because look, let's be honest, there's a lot of Nike
1:31:58
Speaker 2: signature shoes out there that are not great. But Steph
1:32:02
Speaker 2: Curry won't let that happen. Can't let that happen. They've
1:32:06
Speaker 2: done really well as of late. The Sabrina en Escu
1:32:09
Speaker 2: shoe awesome, the Asia Wilson shoe awesome, The Devin Booker
1:32:14
Speaker 2: shoes awesome. I need Steph Curry to be like somewhere
1:32:21
Speaker 2: between Jordan's and Kobe's Lebron's. I don't like any of
1:32:26
Speaker 2: the lebron shoes. I like a lot of the Jordans.
1:32:29
Speaker 2: I like somewhat fewer of the Kobe's, but still like them.
1:32:33
Speaker 2: I need Steph Curry to be in there somewhere.
1:32:36
Speaker 3: The Jordan shoes are the best looking, still yeah, the
1:32:39
Speaker 3: og ones for sure. I do like the looks of
1:32:43
Speaker 3: a lot of Kobe shoes. Lebron's shoes were my favorite
1:32:47
Speaker 3: to play in. They were like really good shoes that
1:32:50
Speaker 3: makes sense to me, But they eat Again, you're wearing
1:32:53
Speaker 3: like a big block with a strap on it.
1:32:55
Speaker 2: They're less of a street style shoe a lifestyle shoe,
1:32:58
Speaker 2: and more of a like b good at basketball shoe.
1:33:01
Speaker 2: I also, I still think one of my gripes with
1:33:04
Speaker 2: the Lebron shoes is, uh, if you are not built
1:33:08
Speaker 2: like a bronze statue, like some sort of demi god
1:33:12
Speaker 2: with the proportions of a Lebron James, the shoes look weird.
1:33:15
Speaker 2: They look cool on him. But if you're like a
1:33:18
Speaker 2: dad bod white guy from Salt Lake City and you
1:33:21
Speaker 2: throw on a Lebron high top, it's probably like come.
1:33:24
Speaker 3: On, dude, and the steps will be probably high tops.
1:33:28
Speaker 3: Based on what we have talked.
1:33:29
Speaker 2: About, a steph Curry low top is just like a
1:33:33
Speaker 2: shoe that injures you as soon as you put it on.
1:33:35
Speaker 2: You just roll your ankle. It's gonna be the bottom
1:33:41
Speaker 2: of the like the sole where you put your foot
1:33:43
Speaker 2: on a step shoe. It's gonna be like convex, so
1:33:47
Speaker 2: that your ankle rolls one way or another if you
1:33:50
Speaker 2: put it on. I have to bring this to the
1:33:53
Speaker 2: air before we get done with the daily Dump, because
1:33:55
Speaker 2: Gordy came in just fire shooting from the hip with this.
1:33:58
Speaker 2: We were talking about the Super Bowl, the upcoming matchup,
1:34:02
Speaker 2: and you know, Gordy, Gordy has regaled us with the
1:34:06
Speaker 2: tales of his Catholic upbringing, Catholic school upbringing. He knows
1:34:09
Speaker 2: I was raised Catholic as well, and he pointed this
1:34:12
Speaker 2: out to me. I had not yet seen this, but
1:34:14
Speaker 2: apparently Porter was also aware of it. There is a
1:34:17
Speaker 2: link between the Seattle Seahawks going to the Super Bowl
1:34:21
Speaker 2: and new popes being elected that goes back decades now.
1:34:27
Speaker 2: In two thousand and five, the Catholic Church elected Pope
1:34:31
Speaker 2: Benedict the sixteenth. The Seahawks made it to the Super
1:34:35
Speaker 2: Bowl that year. In twenty thirteen, Pope Benedict the sixteenth
1:34:40
Speaker 2: was replaced with Pope Francis, and the Seahawks won that
1:34:44
Speaker 2: Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos in twenty twenty five,
1:34:50
Speaker 2: which is of course, when this most recent NFL season,
1:34:54
Speaker 2: this current NFL season started. The Catholic Church elected Pope
1:34:58
Speaker 2: Leo the fourteenth and the Seahawks are Super Bowl bound
1:35:03
Speaker 2: yet again. All right, you numerologists out there, you nostra dami,
1:35:12
Speaker 2: you folks that are into the horoscopes and whatever else,
1:35:16
Speaker 2: put this on your pile. Man. This is not once. Okay,
1:35:21
Speaker 2: twice that's coincidence. Three times is a trend. Border.
1:35:25
Speaker 3: So you're you're saying, if you're a Seahawks fan, you
1:35:28
Speaker 3: want to see smoke from the conclict.
1:35:31
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, more likely if you're a Seahawks fan,
1:35:35
Speaker 2: because I think in general they're usually bad people you
1:35:38
Speaker 2: want to see. No, I'm not gonna say it's too
1:35:42
Speaker 2: harsh of a joke.
1:35:43
Speaker 3: I was gonna say because usually when the smoke comes
1:35:46
Speaker 3: from the conclave.
1:35:47
Speaker 2: You know why. You know why they're electing a new pope. Right,
1:35:50
Speaker 2: So that's what you're rooting for, Seahawks fans, Thanks a lot.
1:35:53
Speaker 2: It's perfect for you. It's a billion Catholics around the
1:35:56
Speaker 2: world that are mad about you rooting for that. Wow,
1:36:01
Speaker 2: what a weird thing to be connected. You gotta really
1:36:04
Speaker 2: pick your allegiances if you're a Seahawks fanata I need
1:36:07
Speaker 2: to know if the Seattle Seahawks ownership group is like
1:36:11
Speaker 2: hardcore Catholics or something. Because this is a very very
1:36:15
Speaker 2: odd connection.
1:36:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll have to stay tuned. The pope, the current
1:36:20
Speaker 3: pope's a younger guy, not young, but like compared to
1:36:23
Speaker 3: other popes, right.
1:36:24
Speaker 2: First American pope also, yes.
1:36:27
Speaker 3: So it might be a while until we see the
1:36:30
Speaker 3: Seahawks back in the Super Bowl, according according to this coincidence,
1:36:36
Speaker 3: although I was told once there are no coincidences.
1:36:43
Speaker 2: Wow, I just googled Pope Leo the fourteenth and the
1:36:48
Speaker 2: first three stories are about the pope warning of overly
1:36:52
Speaker 2: affectionate AI chatbots. Can you imagine you've worked your way
1:36:58
Speaker 2: all the way up through the you know, the ladder
1:37:02
Speaker 2: of the Catholic Church and the ultimate ancient bureaucracy, right,
1:37:07
Speaker 2: and you're just like, I wonder what the hot topics
1:37:09
Speaker 2: of my papacy are gonna be, And you're looking back
1:37:13
Speaker 2: on it, and you're just like, I'm gonna I'm gonna
1:37:15
Speaker 2: solve world peace, I'm gonna cure the I'm gonna cure
1:37:20
Speaker 2: the ills of the world in terms of the great
1:37:23
Speaker 2: afflictions of cancer and HIV. And then they're just like, Hey,
1:37:28
Speaker 2: what we really need to address right now is people
1:37:31
Speaker 2: getting tricked by overly affectionate AI chatbots. Pope, not what
1:37:36
Speaker 2: he envisioned, I imagine.
1:37:38
Speaker 3: Might it might just be a sign of the times there, Seans.
1:37:41
Speaker 3: That's where we're at. It's just terrible. Oh my goodness. Anyway,
1:37:47
Speaker 3: that's your daily dump.
1:37:48
Speaker 2: Look for the truck with the duck for all your
1:37:50
Speaker 2: plumbing and draining, drain cleaning, and now your HVAC needs
1:37:56
Speaker 2: as well. Telemoc sent you a quick leader boar update
1:38:00
Speaker 2: on the other side, and then Eric Weddle to start
1:38:03
Speaker 2: our number three. It's the Sean o'connall Show on utel
1:38:06
Speaker 2: is number one Sports Talk ESPN seven.
1:38:14
Speaker 3: High under.
1:38:17
Speaker 5: Not to up with.
1:38:23
Speaker 2: It's sweets candy, It's tasted on my mind. Where you
1:38:32
Speaker 2: got me? Thursday? All right, let's take a look at
1:38:36
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour leaderboard update from the Farmer's Insurance Open
1:38:42
Speaker 2: at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California. Round one in progress,
1:38:50
Speaker 2: and let's see what we've got here. We've got Greiserman
1:38:54
Speaker 2: Max Greiserman six under, Justin Lower, five under McGreevy, five
1:39:01
Speaker 2: under Eric Cole, and several others sitting at four under
1:39:06
Speaker 2: through ten justin lower Currently in second place is through
1:39:09
Speaker 2: eleven on the course esthetically, very very pleasing. We're watching
1:39:14
Speaker 2: it on the television in front of me right now.
1:39:17
Speaker 2: Tory Pine's one of the more famous courses. Obviously, we've
1:39:19
Speaker 2: got here in the United States of America the North
1:39:23
Speaker 2: Course par seventy two at seventy two point fifty and
1:39:29
Speaker 2: the South Course par seventy two seventy seven sixty five.
1:39:34
Speaker 2: How much golf you play in these days? Porter?
1:39:38
Speaker 4: None?
1:39:38
Speaker 3: Okay, same, unfortunately, all right, it's been man, it's been
1:39:43
Speaker 3: a few years since I like, actually played any.
1:39:48
Speaker 2: Amount of golf.
1:39:49
Speaker 3: You know, a friend invites me a random time that
1:39:53
Speaker 3: I'm free, I'll go hit some balls, I'll go smack
1:39:55
Speaker 3: some balls around. But actually like playing around a golf
1:39:59
Speaker 3: more than once in a month, I don't know.
1:40:04
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Speaker 2: we got to take a break here. We'll start our
1:40:59
Speaker 2: number three with the Utah football Legend, the NFL Legend,
1:41:02
Speaker 2: Eric Weddle. I imagine he will have some thoughts on
1:41:07
Speaker 2: the recent reports, the big news this week in the
1:41:10
Speaker 2: NFL as we await the Super Bowl, not this coming weekend,
1:41:13
Speaker 2: but next. Bill Belichick not going to be a first
1:41:18
Speaker 2: ballot Hall of Famer. The votes and the voters decided
1:41:22
Speaker 2: that he's got to wait at least a year before
1:41:24
Speaker 2: that happens. We'll see what Weddle thinks about that and
1:41:29
Speaker 2: much more, including a Super Bowl matchup. It's the Sean
1:41:31
Speaker 2: O'Connell Show on Utah's number one sports talk ESPN seven.
1:42:03
Speaker 2: Welcome to our number three. Welcome in the legend himself,
1:42:07
Speaker 2: Eric Weddle, who joins us every Thursday to talk all
1:42:10
Speaker 2: things football. Weddle, how are you, sir?
1:42:14
Speaker 5: Feel great? Just sitting here with Jordan Gross, the new
1:42:19
Speaker 5: an upcoming superstar of the Utah youth coaching stavage. Go
1:42:28
Speaker 5: here recruiting, So send all your linemen my way please?
1:42:32
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, officially a you know what you gotta
1:42:36
Speaker 2: get away from Eric Weddle. If you're recruiting lineman, that
1:42:38
Speaker 2: dude's allergic to take it on a block, you cannot.
1:42:41
Speaker 2: You don't want Eric Weddle around offensive line conversation.
1:42:44
Speaker 5: He's mad at me because I told him he was
1:42:46
Speaker 5: short and he said he's average. I said, well, you
1:42:48
Speaker 5: know you're more than average, but you're still short. Bud.
1:42:52
Speaker 2: Oh, what a great pleasure to hear from two Utah legends,
1:42:55
Speaker 2: two for the price of one. Uh W. I texted
1:42:59
Speaker 2: you about this semi jokingly, but Bill Belichick is not
1:43:03
Speaker 2: a first ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer. Everyone has
1:43:07
Speaker 2: thoughts on it. What are yours?
1:43:10
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness, Well, now I know that door is
1:43:14
Speaker 5: officially closed. When it was never opened to start with.
1:43:17
Speaker 5: For Eric Weddell's chances. You know, it's it's kind of
1:43:22
Speaker 5: interesting and it and again when I say this, I
1:43:27
Speaker 5: don't think it should have any bearing on whether you
1:43:30
Speaker 5: make the Hall of Fame or not. I thought it
1:43:33
Speaker 5: was a travesty that Terrell Owens had a wait, like,
1:43:36
Speaker 5: I mean, come on, what are we doing? And but
1:43:39
Speaker 5: it also goes back to how you treat people? Were
1:43:44
Speaker 5: you nice? Were you kind? Were you respectful? And I
1:43:49
Speaker 5: don't know who it was, but it was more than one.
1:43:52
Speaker 5: And unfortunately, when these people in positions of power per
1:43:57
Speaker 5: se wanted to puff out of chess and make a decision.
1:44:02
Speaker 5: And it's it's again, obviously he's a first ballot Hall
1:44:08
Speaker 5: of Famer and he should be, and it's kind of
1:44:11
Speaker 5: it's ridiculous that he's not. But in the grand scheme
1:44:16
Speaker 5: of things, it's a good reminder to treat people the
1:44:19
Speaker 5: way you'd want to be.
1:44:20
Speaker 2: Treated for the sake of argument, because we know that
1:44:23
Speaker 2: he's going to get in, right, But how should we
1:44:26
Speaker 2: treat guys who are caught cheating, whether it's performance enhancing drugs,
1:44:30
Speaker 2: whether it's spygate type stuff. I don't really care about
1:44:33
Speaker 2: deflated footballs, but like stealing signals, maybe listening to another
1:44:38
Speaker 2: team's play calls, and the other things that the Patriots
1:44:41
Speaker 2: were accused of under his watch, those are significant in
1:44:44
Speaker 2: my opinion. It's not a disqualifier. In baseball it is
1:44:48
Speaker 2: apparently in football it's not. But whatever, different discussion, how
1:44:51
Speaker 2: should we treat people who are caught cheating punished for
1:44:55
Speaker 2: cheating during some of their period of greatness when it
1:44:59
Speaker 2: comes to a Hall of Fame voting?
1:45:03
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it didn't. It didn't affect Richard Seymour,
1:45:08
Speaker 5: didn't affect It won't affect Tom Brady. So is it
1:45:14
Speaker 5: different for coaches? You know? Has it? I mean I
1:45:23
Speaker 5: don't know the answer to that. I just know he's
1:45:25
Speaker 5: he's probably the greatest coach ever. And if okay, so
1:45:28
Speaker 5: he supposedly cheated, cheated, I don't really know this for sure.
1:45:32
Speaker 5: So you take two super Bowls away or three Supers whatever,
1:45:35
Speaker 5: he's still he's still has stepped into his name. Like
1:45:39
Speaker 5: what what is I just don't understand what is the point,
1:45:42
Speaker 5: Like what are we trying? What are we trying to
1:45:44
Speaker 5: get out of this? Like you're gonna punish him and
1:45:46
Speaker 5: make him wait one year, Like what why to Is
1:45:51
Speaker 5: it because of that because he cheated? It was the
1:45:54
Speaker 5: cheating scandals? Was it the way he treated Like I
1:45:57
Speaker 5: don't really know. I just at the end of the day,
1:45:58
Speaker 5: like it just makes it kind of look not valid,
1:46:02
Speaker 5: Like what are we trying to do? It's what you
1:46:05
Speaker 5: did on the field. And I know some of the
1:46:07
Speaker 5: things that they did in New England, like the videotaping
1:46:10
Speaker 5: walkthroughs and that stuff was like kind of shady. But
1:46:14
Speaker 5: I mean the guy is accomplished as anybody and he
1:46:18
Speaker 5: should be in there.
1:46:20
Speaker 2: He will eventually. We know that. I want to get
1:46:24
Speaker 2: to the Super Bowl matchup here eventually. But some other
1:46:27
Speaker 2: big news around the league, including for your former team,
1:46:30
Speaker 2: the Ravens. They've hired Jesse Minter, and we talked about
1:46:35
Speaker 2: him being one of the candidates who is maybe at
1:46:37
Speaker 2: the right fit for the Baltimore Ravens. I know you
1:46:40
Speaker 2: love John Harbaugh. They have replaced him with a guy
1:46:43
Speaker 2: who has a great reputation as well. What do you
1:46:45
Speaker 2: think of mentor to the Ravens.
1:46:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think a new face, new blood, new vision,
1:46:51
Speaker 5: new voice was needed there by all accounts from what
1:46:57
Speaker 5: it's seeing. Then you get someone that has ties to
1:47:01
Speaker 5: the Ravens, so you understand the building, you understand the organization, ownership,
1:47:06
Speaker 5: the standard. I think it's I think it really can
1:47:09
Speaker 5: have the effects of Mike McDonald and what he's done
1:47:14
Speaker 5: in Seattle and what he had to come after right
1:47:17
Speaker 5: like he was coming into a situation that was not
1:47:19
Speaker 5: easy with the you know, the success that Pete Carroll
1:47:22
Speaker 5: had had there and coming in his shadow, and he
1:47:26
Speaker 5: with two feet down, did his own thing, his own passion,
1:47:30
Speaker 5: his own vision, took pictures down in the building and
1:47:33
Speaker 5: created an identity and culture that resonates not just throughout
1:47:38
Speaker 5: their team and organization, but you can feel it listening
1:47:41
Speaker 5: to him after games, post game conference comments, and so
1:47:48
Speaker 5: I think Jesse is right in line with that. They're
1:47:51
Speaker 5: very similar personality wise. They're more collaborative working together. It's
1:47:58
Speaker 5: not about me, it's about the players attitude, and I
1:48:01
Speaker 5: think when you have that and you really build a
1:48:03
Speaker 5: connection with the players and really make it about us
1:48:06
Speaker 5: and not about me versus you to get it done,
1:48:10
Speaker 5: I think it really breeds success in the long runs.
1:48:15
Speaker 2: What do you make of what we're seeing with Denver,
1:48:18
Speaker 2: Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos with an exit last
1:48:21
Speaker 2: week on an injured quarterback. I think that goes probably
1:48:24
Speaker 2: a little bit differently, could have gone differently, even with
1:48:26
Speaker 2: the backup. I think it might have gone differently if
1:48:28
Speaker 2: bo Nicks had been in there. He fires his receivers coach,
1:48:32
Speaker 2: he fires a DB's coach, he fires his offensive coordinator,
1:48:36
Speaker 2: and then bo Nicks has his own press conference to
1:48:39
Speaker 2: kind of refute some of the things that his coach said. Now,
1:48:41
Speaker 2: I don't want to like make a mountain out of
1:48:43
Speaker 2: a molehill here, but is there is there any smoke
1:48:46
Speaker 2: or fire that Broncos fans should be worried about when
1:48:49
Speaker 2: it comes to that stuff we've seen.
1:48:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's really interesting to see after a game just
1:48:56
Speaker 5: the wheels fall off of you know, how about you
1:49:02
Speaker 5: fire yourself for not taking the points? Uh going on
1:49:05
Speaker 5: in zero? That's that's what I would say, and that's
1:49:07
Speaker 5: what I would actually ask him, and knowing he's like, yeah,
1:49:10
Speaker 5: he tried to spin it off like I wish I
1:49:12
Speaker 5: had a better call. Well, you didn't, and you're probably
1:49:14
Speaker 5: the main reason why he lost that game. For your
1:49:16
Speaker 5: teammates or for your team that you're supposed to lead
1:49:19
Speaker 5: and put them in the best position possible. So if
1:49:21
Speaker 5: I was one of those leaders, that's what I would say, uh,
1:49:24
Speaker 5: instead of him firing everybody and trying to point paint
1:49:28
Speaker 5: the picture like it was everyone else except except you.
1:49:31
Speaker 5: So and you know, Sean's very successful and I've actually
1:49:35
Speaker 5: like enjoyed interactions with him outside of football, But to me, like,
1:49:39
Speaker 5: he's not a guy that will I would go to
1:49:41
Speaker 5: bat for. Now. You're You're kind of a kind of
1:49:45
Speaker 5: a guy that's at face value that at the end
1:49:48
Speaker 5: of the day, you're gonna look out for yourself. And
1:49:50
Speaker 5: so I'm not really that type of person. And I
1:49:52
Speaker 5: want people to own their mistakes and stand tall in
1:49:55
Speaker 5: the in the face of adversity, and that doesn't seem
1:49:58
Speaker 5: like the case for him. So I love that boat
1:50:01
Speaker 5: got out there. I didn't really hear his comments, but
1:50:03
Speaker 5: it seemed like he was trying to refuw what was
1:50:05
Speaker 5: being said and how he was injured, this, that and
1:50:08
Speaker 5: the other, and I'm like, hey, I like that, man.
1:50:10
Speaker 5: It's it's very few times do you get the chance
1:50:13
Speaker 5: to stand up for yourself and stand up for the
1:50:15
Speaker 5: last name that you represent every single day, and if
1:50:18
Speaker 5: you feel like it's being slandered or slighted. It is
1:50:21
Speaker 5: your duty to stand up for what is right.
1:50:25
Speaker 2: Eric Weddall's our guest here on the Sean O'Connell Show
1:50:28
Speaker 2: talking all things football. Dabo Sweaty went on this huge rant,
1:50:33
Speaker 2: calling out old miss and pulling receipts and pulling timestamps.
1:50:37
Speaker 5: Man, I watched that whole thing go ahead.
1:50:39
Speaker 2: I loved it because, look, very few coaches in college
1:50:43
Speaker 2: football will do this or can do this because they
1:50:46
Speaker 2: know they're guilty and their closets are full of skeletons too. Dabo,
1:50:53
Speaker 2: I'm sure has plenty of skeletons in the closet, but
1:50:55
Speaker 2: he doesn't care. Right, He's a guy. He was just
1:50:57
Speaker 2: calling out the mess. He was calling out as an example,
1:51:01
Speaker 2: what happened with one particular guy. This is a linebacker.
1:51:05
Speaker 2: This is not even like a high profile quarterback. And
1:51:08
Speaker 2: it was fascinating to get. You know, all of the
1:51:11
Speaker 2: layers peeled back so we could see into this mess.
1:51:14
Speaker 2: And he wants something to be done. Do you think
1:51:19
Speaker 2: anything will be done?
1:51:23
Speaker 5: Well, does something need to be done?
1:51:25
Speaker 1: Yes?
1:51:25
Speaker 5: Will it get done? Though, because who's who's going to
1:51:30
Speaker 5: govern this? Who's what are you going to take away?
1:51:34
Speaker 5: You know you if you have a legal tamper and
1:51:36
Speaker 5: you lose draft picks, you get fined millions of dollars.
1:51:39
Speaker 5: Your owner and you're the owners don't like losing money,
1:51:43
Speaker 5: so when you're taking their money, that puts you on notice. Say,
1:51:46
Speaker 5: if you do something stupid like this again, you're fired.
1:51:49
Speaker 5: So I don't know, it happens. Of course it happens,
1:51:54
Speaker 5: and it's really unfortunate. So you just try to have
1:51:58
Speaker 5: some integrity and it needs to be called out because
1:52:02
Speaker 5: there's a lot of this stuff going on that's just
1:52:04
Speaker 5: not right, and it puts these players in tough spots
1:52:07
Speaker 5: where if they're not getting this persuaded or getting notified
1:52:16
Speaker 5: to join the portal and we got this for you
1:52:18
Speaker 5: and I'm going to pay you this. If that stuff
1:52:20
Speaker 5: never happens. A lot of these kids will stay because
1:52:22
Speaker 5: they're happy and they're good, but then you entice them
1:52:26
Speaker 5: with more money. They're not very mature enough and understand
1:52:30
Speaker 5: the big picture to understand like, hey, it's probably not
1:52:32
Speaker 5: what's best for you to leave and do the portal,
1:52:35
Speaker 5: and now you're stuck in the portal. So call it out,
1:52:38
Speaker 5: call out these shady dudes, and hopefully we can get
1:52:42
Speaker 5: some progress of doing it the right way.
1:52:43
Speaker 2: Well, that was one of the things that for me
1:52:45
Speaker 2: with this story was a little bit heartbreaking because and
1:52:50
Speaker 2: you listen to the whole thing, so you know this
1:52:52
Speaker 2: as well as I do. Their guy, Clemson's guy, who
1:52:55
Speaker 2: is a transfer already from cal was trying to be
1:52:58
Speaker 2: loyal and trying to tell the team, Hey, old miss
1:53:02
Speaker 2: is calling me. They're messing with me. I'm gonna stay here,
1:53:05
Speaker 2: right but just so you know, this is what they're saying.
1:53:09
Speaker 2: And through that process that Deabo time stamped and everything
1:53:13
Speaker 2: and brought everyone's name up. We saw a situation where
1:53:17
Speaker 2: this kid, Luke Farelli, who was trying to do the
1:53:20
Speaker 2: right thing, Like we got to watch the process where
1:53:24
Speaker 2: his price was named, you know what I mean, Like
1:53:27
Speaker 2: everyone's got a price to sell out, you're at a
1:53:29
Speaker 2: point in your life where it's significantly higher and your
1:53:32
Speaker 2: name means a lot more. I don't know if whatever
1:53:36
Speaker 2: twenty year old Eric Weddle would have been like, oh
1:53:38
Speaker 2: you got two million dollars for me, Okay, then I'm
1:53:40
Speaker 2: still gonna be loyal. Maybe yes, maybe no, But you
1:53:43
Speaker 2: could see this kid was trying to do the right
1:53:46
Speaker 2: thing for Clemson and buy Clemson, and it didn't work
1:53:49
Speaker 2: out because ultimately the money pulled him into the portal
1:53:54
Speaker 2: and we got to see the example of how that
1:53:56
Speaker 2: happens where he said no, he said no, he said
1:54:00
Speaker 2: I know, and then the offer came where he was
1:54:01
Speaker 2: just like, well, that's an offer I can't refuse. And
1:54:04
Speaker 2: that's a little bit that was sad for me to
1:54:06
Speaker 2: see because you could tell the intentions of the kid
1:54:09
Speaker 2: with those early messages and how those good intentions were
1:54:13
Speaker 2: overcome ultimately by the mess and the money.
1:54:17
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean money. They say money is the root
1:54:19
Speaker 5: of all evil. So and especially twenty year olds that
1:54:24
Speaker 5: may have nothing, have come from nothing that I'm looking
1:54:28
Speaker 5: at this as a chance to make a difference, not
1:54:31
Speaker 5: just for themselves, with other people that have had impact
1:54:34
Speaker 5: on them. So we're we're just making it really really
1:54:38
Speaker 5: hard for our young young people to make the decision
1:54:43
Speaker 5: that's what's best for them for the next thirty forty
1:54:45
Speaker 5: to fifty years. And there just has to be something
1:54:48
Speaker 5: to be said that being a part of a place building,
1:54:52
Speaker 5: those relationships, the continuity graduating, and those the people that
1:54:59
Speaker 5: you have within that institution are what's gonna last much
1:55:03
Speaker 5: longer than the money that you're getting right now, and
1:55:08
Speaker 5: so you just you just hope these universities are educating
1:55:11
Speaker 5: the kids and making them see the big picture of
1:55:17
Speaker 5: what's most important in life, and it's not always the
1:55:20
Speaker 5: dollar signed.
1:55:22
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about the Super Bowl matchup Pats Seahawks.
1:55:27
Speaker 2: Much to my chagrin, the Seahawks made it through. I
1:55:29
Speaker 2: know that's not the outcome you wanted either, because your
1:55:31
Speaker 2: beloved Rams gave you a Super Bowl ring or helped
1:55:34
Speaker 2: you earn that Super Bowl ring, and they came oh
1:55:37
Speaker 2: so close to having another opportunity at that. But now
1:55:41
Speaker 2: that we know the matchup, handicap it for me. How
1:55:44
Speaker 2: do you see this thing playing out? Yeah?
1:55:48
Speaker 5: I think, I mean, I think it'll be a competitive game.
1:55:53
Speaker 5: They're gonna have two weeks of prepare. I just I mean,
1:55:57
Speaker 5: I just think Seattle's sales is too good across the board,
1:56:02
Speaker 5: coaching situational football, Donald the way he played in that
1:56:08
Speaker 5: championship game. I just think they're more dynamic. I think
1:56:12
Speaker 5: they're defensively, I think they present more issues. As long
1:56:17
Speaker 5: as Seattle's not playing the Rams, they just pretty much
1:56:19
Speaker 5: shut down everybody. So I think it's gonna be hard
1:56:22
Speaker 5: press for Donald or not. Donald Drake madea really have
1:56:28
Speaker 5: the success needed to win a Super Bowl. I mean
1:56:32
Speaker 5: that could be totally wrong, but I think Seattle is
1:56:34
Speaker 5: gonna win, and I don't know if it'll be close.
1:56:37
Speaker 5: I'm being honest.
1:56:40
Speaker 2: What is this week right now like for the players
1:56:43
Speaker 2: that are getting ready for this Super Bowl? You obviously
1:56:47
Speaker 2: played in Jordan Gross, who you're with, played his rookie
1:56:50
Speaker 2: year in a super Bowl. The two weeks between the
1:56:55
Speaker 2: conference championship weekend and Super Bowl weekend? What is it
1:56:59
Speaker 2: like as we're approaching weekend number one here?
1:57:04
Speaker 5: Well, that's this first week is really getting your body back,
1:57:07
Speaker 5: depending on how beat up you are from the from
1:57:11
Speaker 5: the games and the season. You know, I was, I
1:57:13
Speaker 5: was in a bad shape after that Niner game, and
1:57:16
Speaker 5: so that next week I don't even know if I
1:57:18
Speaker 5: even practiced, and I was just really beat up. So
1:57:22
Speaker 5: really just getting ahead of the game plan, really getting
1:57:25
Speaker 5: ahead of your opponent, watching tons of film, trying to
1:57:29
Speaker 5: get ahead of the of the schematics of what we're
1:57:31
Speaker 5: going to do. Who are we're taking care of, what
1:57:34
Speaker 5: are they going to be? Some checks early on checks,
1:57:36
Speaker 5: And then I think you usually get the weekend off.
1:57:40
Speaker 5: So if I remember, I think we had Friday, Saturday,
1:57:42
Speaker 5: Sunday off and then back on a Monday morning and
1:57:46
Speaker 5: it was normal game week from there. So the whole
1:57:49
Speaker 5: the whole week really is to get ahead, to get
1:57:52
Speaker 5: some reps if you can, depend on the health of
1:57:55
Speaker 5: your team and getting your body back so you are
1:57:58
Speaker 5: as fresh as possible when when that game hits next Sunday.
1:58:01
Speaker 2: From an emotional standpoint and a mental standpoint, what is
1:58:04
Speaker 2: the load like? Because especially you know as you get
1:58:07
Speaker 2: later into your career and when you came back to
1:58:10
Speaker 2: play for the Rams, you knew that was going to
1:58:12
Speaker 2: be your final opportunity to get a ring that all
1:58:15
Speaker 2: of us wanted to see you get, and you obviously
1:58:17
Speaker 2: had worked so hard for for so long. What is
1:58:20
Speaker 2: the mental load like when you're trying to keep it
1:58:24
Speaker 2: like a regular week of preparation. But it's not just
1:58:26
Speaker 2: any other game. It's the damn Super Bowl.
1:58:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it. It's the only thing that really
1:58:36
Speaker 5: makes the Super Cool Bowl difficult is how much gang
1:58:39
Speaker 5: time in between every timeout and the halftime show is
1:58:43
Speaker 5: forty eight minutes, and you got the rock yelling at
1:58:47
Speaker 5: the top of the zung for four minutes before kickoff,
1:58:49
Speaker 5: and we're just like, can we just kick the ball off?
1:58:51
Speaker 5: And why are you like screaming at everybody? No one,
1:58:55
Speaker 5: everyone wants to watch the game, not you screaming. So
1:58:58
Speaker 5: I think it's just handling that handling. Everything outside of
1:59:01
Speaker 5: the game becomes the biggest issue. I think once the
1:59:06
Speaker 5: ball is in the air and you're playing, it's just
1:59:09
Speaker 5: like every other game. It's just who executes, who's all
1:59:12
Speaker 5: the cliche things, who wins the Turno war battle field position, YadA,
1:59:16
Speaker 5: YadA YadA, who doesn't hurt themselves? Prescapenalities? But how do
1:59:20
Speaker 5: you handle halftime? Right? How do you? And I think
1:59:23
Speaker 5: experience matters because if you don't handle the halftime and
1:59:27
Speaker 5: you warm up too early, or you warm up too late,
1:59:30
Speaker 5: or you you know, like if you sneak out and
1:59:32
Speaker 5: watch Snoop Dog at halftime, like I don't know, you know,
1:59:36
Speaker 5: But those are the things that I think are the
1:59:38
Speaker 5: issues surrounding the actual game. Everything else. You just try
1:59:43
Speaker 5: to keep the same keep your same routine, don't make
1:59:46
Speaker 5: it more. When you make it more than what it is,
1:59:48
Speaker 5: then you press and then you do stupid mistakes.
1:59:51
Speaker 2: Does anyone actually sneak out and watch the halftime performance.
1:59:55
Speaker 5: I think I think they're a kicker said that they
1:59:57
Speaker 5: went out like I think it was this season, And
2:00:01
Speaker 5: I know kickers. Kickers aren't real people, so it's okay.
2:00:04
Speaker 2: That's a different deal. Kickers could do whatever they want.
2:00:06
Speaker 2: They're they're strange. Uh what what is the what is
2:00:11
Speaker 2: the high school head coach world?
2:00:14
Speaker 5: Like?
2:00:14
Speaker 2: Right now? What do you what are you doing with
2:00:16
Speaker 2: this offseason with your guys?
2:00:19
Speaker 5: Right now, we're just slowly, you know, like we planned
2:00:23
Speaker 5: out the next four months. We're finding the spring ball
2:00:27
Speaker 5: and scheduling and that we have to replenish the helmets.
2:00:31
Speaker 5: They got to get recertified, We got jerseys, equipment, YadA, YadA, YadA.
2:00:36
Speaker 5: But right now, specifically fourth period, just we're doing three
2:00:40
Speaker 5: days a week lifting with about twenty minutes in the classroom.
2:00:43
Speaker 5: So we do like hot seat, we do culture building,
2:00:46
Speaker 5: team building type activities, and then the other two days
2:00:51
Speaker 5: we do like football school one on one. Like I'm
2:00:53
Speaker 5: trying to emphasize like the game, teaching them the game
2:00:56
Speaker 5: situational football. Uh, you know why am I calling this call?
2:01:01
Speaker 5: What is the what is the purpose of the situation?
2:01:06
Speaker 5: So we uh we can go out and be great.
2:01:09
Speaker 5: So that's right right now. Then April Hits will go
2:01:12
Speaker 5: four days a week in the weight room and that'll
2:01:15
Speaker 5: lead the spring ball and shooting. The season's here. So
2:01:19
Speaker 5: we got a rock at for that point.
2:01:22
Speaker 2: If I was a good friend, I would know the
2:01:23
Speaker 2: answer to this question already. But which which senior game,
2:01:29
Speaker 2: Senior All Star game did you participate in? Coming out
2:01:33
Speaker 2: the senior ball down in Mobile, Alabama, going through the practices,
2:01:37
Speaker 2: et cetera. What was that experience like for you as
2:01:40
Speaker 2: a guy? People got to remember this was Mount West Conference,
2:01:44
Speaker 2: University of Utah. This is not Power for Utah. This
2:01:47
Speaker 2: is a much less established version of what the program
2:01:51
Speaker 2: was at that time. So you know, you were a
2:01:54
Speaker 2: small school guy compared to what some of the other
2:01:56
Speaker 2: players down there were. What was that experience like for you?
2:02:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was, it was. I mean it was a
2:02:03
Speaker 5: huge get when I got the invite. It was really
2:02:09
Speaker 5: a really big deal. I mean, I think I don't
2:02:12
Speaker 5: know what the exact percentage is, but it's a high
2:02:14
Speaker 5: percentage of guys that goes to Singer Bowl usually get
2:02:16
Speaker 5: drafted because it's the best of the best. Now they're
2:02:19
Speaker 5: allowing underclassmen to join in. So really it was an
2:02:22
Speaker 5: opportunity to for the scouts. Every scout is there, usually
2:02:26
Speaker 5: every GM is there, a lot of the coaches are there,
2:02:29
Speaker 5: so they get to see you in person competing, and
2:02:32
Speaker 5: I just had to show like I was a guy
2:02:35
Speaker 5: that could play against the best and handle my own
2:02:39
Speaker 5: and then you know, one on ones, I'm locking people
2:02:42
Speaker 5: up and team I'm making turnovers, I'm picking the ball off.
2:02:45
Speaker 5: So it was a great and really important week for
2:02:49
Speaker 5: me to go on show because of the stigma of
2:02:52
Speaker 5: the Mountain West and just the competition wasn't the same
2:02:55
Speaker 5: as some other schools, so you had to go alleviate
2:02:58
Speaker 5: that notion from coaches when when they watch a film,
2:03:04
Speaker 5: do you.
2:03:05
Speaker 2: Have a guy right now on your roster that that
2:03:07
Speaker 2: Jordan Gross is down there recruiting or is he just
2:03:10
Speaker 2: using this as an excuse to check in with a buddy,
2:03:16
Speaker 2: or like are you guys or are you guys going
2:03:18
Speaker 2: golfing or something like no, I.
2:03:20
Speaker 5: Wish we're going golfing. No, he's been making the round
2:03:23
Speaker 5: like I think this is probably fourth or fifth school.
2:03:26
Speaker 5: He wanted to say what's up the gauge? So you
2:03:30
Speaker 5: know they've been talking for like fifteen minutes, and Gage
2:03:32
Speaker 5: just went off, just went back to class and a
2:03:35
Speaker 5: little bit to say Lou and then then he'll be
2:03:38
Speaker 5: making his way on other schools. Hearing a bit.
2:03:42
Speaker 2: I was laughing on the on the show yesterday because
2:03:45
Speaker 2: there was a picture posted from another cat at Utah's
2:03:48
Speaker 2: recruiting and he's down there visiting him and it's this
2:03:51
Speaker 2: high school kid at Servite who's like two. He looks
2:03:54
Speaker 2: like he's sixty pounds heavier and two inches taller than
2:03:58
Speaker 2: Jordan Gross, who played a decade in the end. Fel
2:04:00
Speaker 2: what are they feeding these kids? Man?
2:04:03
Speaker 5: That was the first thing he said. We went, we
2:04:05
Speaker 5: went and grab lunch together, and he's like, man, I
2:04:07
Speaker 5: think I got to get back in the weight room
2:04:09
Speaker 5: and put on some back on some muscles so I
2:04:11
Speaker 5: can I can actually show him some stuff on the field,
2:04:14
Speaker 5: because these dudes are monsters.
2:04:17
Speaker 2: When you when you're watching like I don't know how
2:04:20
Speaker 2: much of like the Senior Bowl tape or whatever, when
2:04:24
Speaker 2: you're watching high school tape, obviously, how easy is it
2:04:28
Speaker 2: for you having played at the level you played at
2:04:30
Speaker 2: and now coaching high school and you know your success
2:04:32
Speaker 2: in college? How easy is it for you. How quickly
2:04:35
Speaker 2: can you assess like, oh, that's a guy I'm going
2:04:38
Speaker 2: to see him playing on Saturday, so I'm going to
2:04:40
Speaker 2: see him playing even potentially on Sunday someday. How quickly
2:04:44
Speaker 2: is your eye drawn to the dudes that are the
2:04:46
Speaker 2: outliers that belong at a higher level.
2:04:51
Speaker 5: I think we have. I think we can get a
2:04:54
Speaker 5: good idea fairly quickly watching them move in their size
2:05:01
Speaker 5: and potential. I think even more so when I was playing,
2:05:07
Speaker 5: anytime we got draft picks or undrafted guys and we
2:05:10
Speaker 5: get the first day or two in practice, thought, I
2:05:12
Speaker 5: bet Jordan would say the same. I could tell right
2:05:14
Speaker 5: away if they were one going to make the team
2:05:16
Speaker 5: and two going to have a career just by how
2:05:17
Speaker 5: they how they moved, and how I could see like
2:05:22
Speaker 5: directly correlated to my position. So I think as you
2:05:25
Speaker 5: get older and you see more players come through your program,
2:05:29
Speaker 5: you can guide and get idea of what it looks like.
2:05:33
Speaker 5: But definitely for DB's like I kind of know like
2:05:36
Speaker 5: do they have a chance or not. And then skill guys,
2:05:39
Speaker 5: there's like pre records that we're requisites that you kind
2:05:43
Speaker 5: of have to have, and then you tind the heart
2:05:46
Speaker 5: factor and the toughness and the processing in mind. That's
2:05:49
Speaker 5: that's one of the good coaches will find the superstuds
2:05:53
Speaker 5: that make ten your careers.
2:05:54
Speaker 2: Well, forgive me for drilling down to even more detail
2:05:58
Speaker 2: on this, but like when you say, watching how guy moves,
2:06:01
Speaker 2: is it how they come in and out of breaks?
2:06:04
Speaker 2: Is it the backpedal? Is it the stride? Is it
2:06:07
Speaker 2: all of the above? Like when you say, I can
2:06:10
Speaker 2: watch somebody move and no, what are you looking for
2:06:12
Speaker 2: in that movement?
2:06:14
Speaker 5: Oh, my gosh, it's it's pad level, It's it's the feet,
2:06:18
Speaker 5: It's how many steps? Are they smooth? Are they explosive?
2:06:22
Speaker 5: Are they how many steps are they taking out of
2:06:24
Speaker 5: the break? Are they breaking towards the target? Are they
2:06:27
Speaker 5: wasting steps? Or where is their eyes? Where are their
2:06:30
Speaker 5: eyes looking? You know, that's probably only half of it.
2:06:34
Speaker 5: And then the other half is the knowledge of the
2:06:37
Speaker 5: game and what are their pre snap pre snap checklists.
2:06:41
Speaker 5: What are they thinking about? Where are their eyes? What
2:06:44
Speaker 5: is their eye discipline? Do they know what they're doing?
2:06:48
Speaker 5: Do they communicate? Like so much of the game is
2:06:51
Speaker 5: more of the mental side really at the NFL, but
2:06:54
Speaker 5: you have to it's if you don't have the physical
2:06:58
Speaker 5: for parts, and you you better be elite at processing
2:07:01
Speaker 5: and communication, and even then you still may not have
2:07:04
Speaker 5: a chance.
2:07:06
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know that all of us have the
2:07:08
Speaker 2: same trained eye as Eric Weddel or Jordan Gross, but
2:07:10
Speaker 2: we do our best to try and assess what these
2:07:12
Speaker 2: cats are capable of, and we will do that as
2:07:14
Speaker 2: we get into springball and everything else, and we will
2:07:17
Speaker 2: keep talking about it to always appreciate your time. I
2:07:22
Speaker 2: gotta text you I'm traveling next Thursday, so I think
2:07:24
Speaker 2: we're gonna try to get you on Wednesday if that works.
2:07:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, bro.
2:07:28
Speaker 2: All Right, dude, thanks for your time as always. Tell
2:07:31
Speaker 2: Jordan thanks for popping on as well.
2:07:35
Speaker 5: You got it.
2:07:35
Speaker 2: Love it, bro, all right, dude, love you.
2:07:37
Speaker 1: Man.
2:07:37
Speaker 2: That's Eric Weddle, you tough football legend and a guy
2:07:42
Speaker 2: that I will say it every time. Not gonna be
2:07:45
Speaker 2: a first ballot Hall of Famer, but neither's Bill Belichick.
2:07:48
Speaker 2: All Right, I want to see our guy in. I
2:07:50
Speaker 2: think that you can make a strong case, even though
2:07:53
Speaker 2: we gave him the opportunity a couple of weeks ago
2:07:56
Speaker 2: to make his own case and he refused to do it.
2:07:58
Speaker 2: But that's just how humble he is.
2:08:01
Speaker 3: All right, oh see, yeah, if I can go ahead,
2:08:04
Speaker 3: Port Larson, and you mentioned yeah, maybe not a first
2:08:09
Speaker 3: ballot Hall of Famer, but there are three players in
2:08:16
Speaker 3: NFL history that matched his career tackles, interceptions, pass breakup
2:08:23
Speaker 3: numbers three. He's one of those three, and the other
2:08:29
Speaker 3: two are Hall of famers. The other two are Hall
2:08:31
Speaker 3: of famers. Charles Woodson, I think Rende Barber and might
2:08:35
Speaker 3: have to.
2:08:37
Speaker 2: The closest analog that you can find. And I again,
2:08:41
Speaker 2: our guy, like, if I was working for the NFL network,
2:08:44
Speaker 2: I would I would have to yell at him for
2:08:45
Speaker 2: doing it this way. But I asked him, hey, do
2:08:50
Speaker 2: you think John Lynch belongs in the Hall of Fame?
2:08:53
Speaker 2: And instead of saying absolutely yes, he was like, I
2:08:55
Speaker 2: don't know, does he like, how could you tell? Most
2:09:01
Speaker 2: people will answer to the affirmative, does John Lynch belong
2:09:04
Speaker 2: in the Pro Football Hall of Fame? He is in
2:09:07
Speaker 2: the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so the answer is
2:09:10
Speaker 2: yes for most people. Weddle has either equal or better
2:09:15
Speaker 2: stats than John Lynch. And when he came out of
2:09:18
Speaker 2: retirement and went on that run with the Rams, he
2:09:21
Speaker 2: got what I thought might be kind of the final
2:09:23
Speaker 2: straw to break the camel's back. He got the Super
2:09:25
Speaker 2: Bowl ring, which I know for safeties is not as
2:09:27
Speaker 2: big of a deal as it is for quarterbacks, but
2:09:30
Speaker 2: still adds to the resume. Super Bowl champ.
2:09:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, five time All Pro, yes, six time Pro Bowler, Yes,
2:09:36
Speaker 3: I know that's whatever. Now led the league interceptions a
2:09:41
Speaker 3: couple times All decade team in the twenty tens, according
2:09:46
Speaker 3: to the NFL. And then these are the numbers I
2:09:48
Speaker 3: was talking about. One and seventy nine tackles, twenty nine interceptions,
2:09:55
Speaker 3: ninety eight pass breakups in his career. Eric Weddle, Harrison Smith,
2:10:02
Speaker 3: Charles Woodson. Those are the only three that match those
2:10:06
Speaker 3: numbers in NFL history. Obviously Harrison Smith not a Hall
2:10:09
Speaker 3: of Famer yet not eligible. Woodson obviously a Hall of Famer. Yes,
2:10:16
Speaker 3: I mean, I know that tackles sometimes don't tell a
2:10:19
Speaker 3: whole story, but when you play in the defensive backfield,
2:10:22
Speaker 3: you're like the last line of defense.
2:10:24
Speaker 2: They kind of do.
2:10:25
Speaker 3: A lot of linebackers have more tackles than they should
2:10:28
Speaker 3: because they allow a tight end to catch a ball
2:10:31
Speaker 3: every other down, right, because they're not committing their assignment.
2:10:36
Speaker 3: Not the case with DB's that's an elite list of
2:10:41
Speaker 3: three guys.
2:10:41
Speaker 2: Which, by the way, the tackles number for me with
2:10:43
Speaker 2: Eric Weddle is the most impressive and the most interesting
2:10:47
Speaker 2: because there's a there's something about our guy, Eric Weddle
2:10:52
Speaker 2: that separates him pretty significantly from Charles Woodson. And Harrison's
2:10:55
Speaker 2: smaller than me. He is small compared to those guys.
2:10:59
Speaker 2: Those dudes are missiles. Especially Harrison is a giant guy. Yeah, right,
2:11:06
Speaker 2: And I mean, look, it didn't always go Weddle's way
2:11:09
Speaker 2: when he was sticking his nose in there, but the
2:11:12
Speaker 2: point is he did it anyway, right, and he was
2:11:15
Speaker 2: there and he was I don't know, he's just a great,
2:11:18
Speaker 2: great football player. I know it takes more than being
2:11:21
Speaker 2: a great football player to get into the Hall of Fame,
2:11:26
Speaker 2: but I think he's checked all of those boxes too,
2:11:29
Speaker 2: And he's an elite human being and an elite mind
2:11:33
Speaker 2: when it comes to football. So we're gonna get, hopefully,
2:11:37
Speaker 2: we're gonna get a period of time where Utah football
2:11:40
Speaker 2: once again benefits from his expertise. Even if that doesn't
2:11:43
Speaker 2: happen and he goes off to an NFL GM job
2:11:47
Speaker 2: or an NFL coaching job or whatever, It is just
2:11:50
Speaker 2: you cannot ask for more from a guy as an alum,
2:11:53
Speaker 2: as a person, as a player, as a friend. He's
2:11:56
Speaker 2: just elite man in every way.
2:11:57
Speaker 3: I thought Eric Weddle was potential Hall of Famer the
2:12:01
Speaker 3: first time he retired, and then he came back and
2:12:04
Speaker 3: not only was part of a Super Bowl run, but
2:12:06
Speaker 3: by the end of the run was wearing the green
2:12:08
Speaker 3: dot being the team in tackles right up there in it.
2:12:12
Speaker 3: And as you mentioned, yeah, he those eleven hundred plus tackles,
2:12:16
Speaker 3: he may feel them more than just about anyone else
2:12:19
Speaker 3: in that list. Steve Smith also listen, there's two uts
2:12:22
Speaker 3: that are like right on that edge there. Steve Smith
2:12:27
Speaker 3: is behind I think eight or nine guys as far
2:12:29
Speaker 3: as total receptions yards the above. All those guys also
2:12:34
Speaker 3: Hall of Famers. So let's let's start tooting that horn
2:12:40
Speaker 3: for those two.
2:12:43
Speaker 2: We'll do that on this show, all right. I put
2:12:46
Speaker 2: up another poll question today we have not addressed yet.
2:12:48
Speaker 2: I do want to get to the results so far
2:12:50
Speaker 2: and pose it to the listeners out there. It's the
2:12:52
Speaker 2: Sean O'Connell show on ESPN seven ninety two one FM.
2:12:56
Speaker 1: You were listening to the Sean O'Connell, show your source
2:12:59
Speaker 1: for the best football cover reach. Here's oc from the
2:13:02
Speaker 1: Murdoch Hyundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred at ninety two
2:13:06
Speaker 1: to one a f M.
2:13:26
Speaker 2: All right, apropos nothing on the timing with the question,
2:13:29
Speaker 2: But it's recruiting season, year round for college football teams.
2:13:35
Speaker 2: Class at twenty twenty six, most of that is settled
2:13:39
Speaker 2: class at twenty twenty seven. That really really ramps up
2:13:42
Speaker 2: right now, and you're seeing a lot of guys taking visits,
2:13:46
Speaker 2: getting offers, et cetera, et cetera. So it begged the
2:13:51
Speaker 2: question for me if I put you in charge of
2:13:53
Speaker 2: filling out Utah Football's roster. And of course Morgan Scalley
2:13:57
Speaker 2: is mostly in charge of this, but let's say he
2:13:59
Speaker 2: was just like, I'll coach whatever you got. Just bring
2:14:02
Speaker 2: me what you can get, knowing that you're gonna have
2:14:05
Speaker 2: twenty million, twenty one million dollars to spend, knowing what
2:14:09
Speaker 2: it takes to get five star athletes out of high school,
2:14:12
Speaker 2: knowing what it takes to get four star athletes out
2:14:14
Speaker 2: of high school, whatever, what type of recruit do you,
2:14:19
Speaker 2: as a fan even want to see form the backbone
2:14:22
Speaker 2: in Utah football's roster. I put four answers in here,
2:14:27
Speaker 2: smaller school transfers. You know what I'm talking about, fcs,
2:14:30
Speaker 2: guys that overperform group of five guys that overperform high
2:14:34
Speaker 2: schoolers that Let's be honest, you're getting more projects than
2:14:38
Speaker 2: you are finished products at the University of Utah. You
2:14:42
Speaker 2: are not Notre Dame. You are not Ohio State, you
2:14:46
Speaker 2: are not Alabama. You're not getting a bunch of Kelvin obots.
2:14:51
Speaker 2: All right, you want those guys, you want three star
2:14:55
Speaker 2: high schoolers? Do you want power for transfer, lateral moves,
2:15:00
Speaker 2: bounce backs, whatever you call them. Guys that came that
2:15:04
Speaker 2: went to BYU originally, or they went to Texas Tech originally,
2:15:07
Speaker 2: they went to Arizona State originally, or they went to
2:15:09
Speaker 2: USC for that matter, and then they decided no, I'd
2:15:12
Speaker 2: be better fit at a place like Utah. Maybe I
2:15:14
Speaker 2: didn't get the playing time I wanted, and then I
2:15:16
Speaker 2: shouldn't have put this one, because of course it makes
2:15:18
Speaker 2: the most sense, But I did anyway, and even mix
2:15:20
Speaker 2: of all three more interesting to me. That's running away
2:15:24
Speaker 2: with the percentage here, But more interesting to me is
2:15:27
Speaker 2: that it seems like most people who are willing to
2:15:30
Speaker 2: take a stand on this. They would rather see small
2:15:33
Speaker 2: school transfers be the backbone of Utah Football's roster. And
2:15:38
Speaker 2: I cannot tell you how much more or how I
2:15:42
Speaker 2: cannot agree more with what you're saying, with what you're thinking.
2:15:47
Speaker 2: If Morgan Scally called me and said, oh see, put
2:15:50
Speaker 2: me make me a roster, it would be ninety five
2:15:55
Speaker 2: percent dudes that got under recruited and were overlooked and
2:16:02
Speaker 2: went to Weber State, or went to Incarnate Word, or
2:16:06
Speaker 2: went to some juco or went to SUU and killed it.
2:16:10
Speaker 2: In those places. That is exactly where I would get
2:16:14
Speaker 2: the bulk of my roster. A legacy guy a Celestimoa,
2:16:20
Speaker 2: I would absolutely take a swing someone coached by a
2:16:24
Speaker 2: ute a Calvanobot. Absolutely yes, go after it. A gauge weddel.
2:16:28
Speaker 2: I'm setting aside the maximum amount of money for an
2:16:31
Speaker 2: opportunity like that, But the vast bulk of my roster,
2:16:36
Speaker 2: if I were in charge, is coming from that James
2:16:41
Speaker 2: Madison's players that Kurt Signetti decided not to take with
2:16:44
Speaker 2: him to Indiana that have production, that are doing it
2:16:50
Speaker 2: at a college football level. Probably the only prediction I've
2:16:55
Speaker 2: gotten right recently is that I said, at some point,
2:17:00
Speaker 2: the transfer portal is going to be as important or
2:17:03
Speaker 2: even more important in college football than high school recruiting.
2:17:07
Speaker 2: And a lot of people, this was early in the
2:17:09
Speaker 2: days of all these changes. A lot of people are
2:17:11
Speaker 2: just like, you're crazy. Coaches want four year guys. And
2:17:15
Speaker 2: that's still true. They want four year guys, but a
2:17:18
Speaker 2: lot of them are acknowledging how impossible it is to
2:17:21
Speaker 2: have the vast majority of your roster be there for
2:17:24
Speaker 2: four years. We're gonna look at you, Tah completing a
2:17:28
Speaker 2: signing class in the spring, right, they're twenty twenty six class,
2:17:34
Speaker 2: and then we're going to look at that twenty twenty
2:17:36
Speaker 2: six class in twenty twenty seven and twenty twenty eight,
2:17:38
Speaker 2: and we're going to ask the question, how many of
2:17:40
Speaker 2: these guys are still here, and it's gonna be fifty
2:17:43
Speaker 2: percent or less. With that in mind, I'm living in
2:17:48
Speaker 2: the world I live in now. I'm embracing the system
2:17:51
Speaker 2: that exists because there's nothing I can do against it
2:17:54
Speaker 2: for the time being. And I'm saying, give me every
2:17:58
Speaker 2: single fcs, all of my American bring them all to
2:18:01
Speaker 2: the University of Utah. I want every one of them. Oh,
2:18:05
Speaker 2: but the offensive linemen are undersized. Okay, fine, give me
2:18:09
Speaker 2: four of them and Kelvin obought to round it out.
2:18:15
Speaker 2: That would be my backbone at the University of Utah.
2:18:17
Speaker 2: If I was at Ohio State, I'd be giving you
2:18:19
Speaker 2: a different answer. If I was at USC, I'd be
2:18:21
Speaker 2: giving you a different answer. If I was at Texas Tech,
2:18:24
Speaker 2: I would be getting all powerful bounce backs and transfers.
2:18:29
Speaker 2: I'd be going to get get me ten David Baileys, please,
2:18:33
Speaker 2: because I've got the money to do it. At Utah,
2:18:35
Speaker 2: I'm going small school transfers and high school kids, don't.
2:18:39
Speaker 2: I don't care about the power four dudes at all.
2:18:43
Speaker 2: What do you think, Porter, Am I a good GM
2:18:45
Speaker 2: to have?
2:18:46
Speaker 3: I think so? All right, I'm putting your name in
2:18:49
Speaker 3: the ring. I think they already gave that job away back.
2:18:51
Speaker 2: They gave it away to a guy who's a lot
2:18:53
Speaker 2: smarter than me. Ivy League dude. So, uh, Wharton school?
2:18:57
Speaker 5: Right?
2:18:58
Speaker 2: Did he? Wait? Is he a Wharton b A guy?
2:19:00
Speaker 2: I think? So? He's like, actually really smart. He's at
2:19:05
Speaker 2: all conference linemen at Penn All right, that's an Ivy
2:19:08
Speaker 2: League school. He knows, he knows his stuff. He's a
2:19:12
Speaker 2: Wharton school guy too. Geez. Yeah.
2:19:14
Speaker 3: The the real and correct answer is the one that
2:19:16
Speaker 3: everyone's picking. It is even mix of all, maybe not
2:19:18
Speaker 3: an even mix of all. That's gonna it's gonna, you know,
2:19:22
Speaker 3: go up and down based on availability and just case
2:19:27
Speaker 3: by case basis. Now where Utah has always made their
2:19:31
Speaker 3: hay and this is something that Kyle Whittingham and Morgan
2:19:35
Speaker 3: Scaley are notorious for is finding in evaluating talent regardless
2:19:40
Speaker 3: of where it comes from. I don't care if you're
2:19:43
Speaker 3: a P four player, a high school project player, a
2:19:46
Speaker 3: small school guy, or you're not even a football player, right.
2:19:50
Speaker 3: Nate Orchard, Stevenson, Sylvester, Julian Blackman, they were all football players,
2:19:54
Speaker 3: but they were mostly recruited on basketball visits, just being.
2:20:00
Speaker 2: Greek athletes, right.
2:20:04
Speaker 3: And that's just what UTA's has kind of made their
2:20:08
Speaker 3: program on, is valuating talent, whether you're a three star,
2:20:12
Speaker 3: a four star, or an Eric Weddell zero star type
2:20:15
Speaker 3: recruit who's out in California, undersized, but he's got some
2:20:19
Speaker 3: sort of intangible that says we got something here, right. Yeah.
2:20:24
Speaker 3: When Kyle and co went to recruit Eric and Urban
2:20:29
Speaker 3: Weddle wasn't the guy that they were there to see
2:20:32
Speaker 3: probably has told you this story before. Yeah, that's how
2:20:38
Speaker 3: Utah is going to keep finding recruits now in this
2:20:41
Speaker 3: new space where nil and transfer portal is a part
2:20:47
Speaker 3: of it. Yeah, you're gonna look at some of the
2:20:48
Speaker 3: P four guys. Of course you'd be dumb not to.
2:20:51
Speaker 3: But you don't necessarily have to mortgage the office to
2:20:57
Speaker 3: go get a wide receiver from Tennessee when you know,
2:21:01
Speaker 3: you think you can go get that kid from Utah State.
2:21:04
Speaker 3: That's that's the reality. And we're in and I think
2:21:07
Speaker 3: knowing and trusting that Morgan has some experience in this already,
2:21:11
Speaker 3: you can you can kind of just go even mix
2:21:13
Speaker 3: of all knowing that he's it's gonna go up and down. Now,
2:21:15
Speaker 3: you know what I really like, Sean guys who cut
2:21:18
Speaker 3: their teeth at the higher level and then go for
2:21:22
Speaker 3: their senior season to the to the lower level.
2:21:25
Speaker 2: That's that's the really cool ones. Those are the guys
2:21:29
Speaker 2: that I like. That's the good stuff. When you spend
2:21:32
Speaker 2: four years trying to make it onto the field and
2:21:36
Speaker 2: then they're just like, dude, you're not good enough to
2:21:38
Speaker 2: play here. So you're like, oh, what if I went
2:21:40
Speaker 2: there instead. What if I go to Weaver State, for example,
2:21:45
Speaker 2: and then it's like, yeah, just for an example, no
2:21:47
Speaker 2: personal connection here, then it's like, oh, weird, you're able
2:21:50
Speaker 2: to get on the field there, like And honestly, if
2:21:55
Speaker 2: you're a high school athlete, now, I honestly I believe
2:22:00
Speaker 2: that unless you're a Gauge Weddle. Right, he's a five
2:22:03
Speaker 2: star kid, he's gonna be one of the top recruits
2:22:05
Speaker 2: in the nation. He's already got every offer you could
2:22:08
Speaker 2: ever dream of as a as a as an athlete.
2:22:11
Speaker 2: But if you're like a normal if you're an Eric Weddle,
2:22:13
Speaker 2: not a Gauge weddal Utah was at that time an
2:22:18
Speaker 2: equivalent of what you know a UNLV is. Now, you
2:22:22
Speaker 2: take the UNLV offer knowing that you're gonna play right away.
2:22:26
Speaker 2: Eric Weddle was a freshman All American at the University
2:22:29
Speaker 2: of Utah. Now, knowing what we know about him, you
2:22:32
Speaker 2: probably could have convinced him to stay at the University
2:22:35
Speaker 2: of Utah for the whole time. I anticipate that Gauge
2:22:37
Speaker 2: Weddle will play for one university for his entire college
2:22:41
Speaker 2: football career. Because of how serious his dad is about
2:22:44
Speaker 2: the loyalty stuff and about the Weddle name, and about
2:22:47
Speaker 2: you know, doing it the right way and whatnot. But
2:22:50
Speaker 2: if you were advising anyone, any young person who's trying
2:22:55
Speaker 2: to make the transition from high school football to college football,
2:22:59
Speaker 2: it'd be like, dude, go wherever you're on the field,
2:23:02
Speaker 2: because if you get thirty eight tackles and one sack
2:23:07
Speaker 2: at whatever school, you've got five hundred grand to a
2:23:11
Speaker 2: million dollars coming your way from Ole Miss or Clemson
2:23:15
Speaker 2: or Utah as soon as you hit the transfer portal.
2:23:18
Speaker 2: And I know that it's probably an ugly thing for
2:23:21
Speaker 2: some people to hear while you're planning on transferring. Yeah,
2:23:23
Speaker 2: if you start off at New Mexico, if you go
2:23:26
Speaker 2: to Idaho, right, if you're at Weaber State, that your aspiration.
2:23:32
Speaker 2: I have no problem with your aspiration being to transfer.
2:23:35
Speaker 2: Have you seen Jack Kelly. Jack Kelly's name right now
2:23:38
Speaker 2: is all over the Senior Bowl practices as one of
2:23:40
Speaker 2: the winners of the day. Yeah, Kerns high Weaber State
2:23:45
Speaker 2: University BYU all conference level performer where he got paid
2:23:49
Speaker 2: a lot of money and now he's gonna make NFL money.
2:23:52
Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with that being your path.
2:23:54
Speaker 3: I'm gonna shout out a guy that shadowed to Skyler Maine,
2:23:58
Speaker 3: who I worked with a few years ago in the
2:24:00
Speaker 3: pre draft process, Jalen Warren East High kid. When he
2:24:08
Speaker 3: was at East High, he told me this. People recruiting
2:24:10
Speaker 3: him said, you're too small to play D one. Sorry, Like, yeah, okay,
2:24:15
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna go to Ephraim I'm gonna light up
2:24:17
Speaker 3: the world snow college. Then he goes to Utah State. Great,
2:24:21
Speaker 3: great job. And then he keeps trying. He goes to
2:24:24
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State. Yeah, and then his name starts to appear
2:24:27
Speaker 3: on draft boards, and now he is probably the most
2:24:31
Speaker 3: consistent running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. That can be
2:24:34
Speaker 3: your path too. Go where you're valued and where you
2:24:39
Speaker 3: can see the field. If you go somewhere where you're
2:24:42
Speaker 3: gonna sit behind a premier player for two years, it
2:24:46
Speaker 3: doesn't matter how good you are. If your tape isn't there,
2:24:49
Speaker 3: teams aren't gonna know where you're at. You got to
2:24:51
Speaker 3: you gotta see the field.
2:24:52
Speaker 2: If I could go back and talk to my seventeen
2:24:54
Speaker 2: year old self, I'd be like, you're time to be
2:24:58
Speaker 2: a realist. Go to Weaver State and be there be
2:25:02
Speaker 2: there for as long as you have to be there.
2:25:03
Speaker 2: Stay there, right, you'll play there. But I don't know
2:25:09
Speaker 2: the backbone of your roster, your team or whatever. How
2:25:12
Speaker 2: are you building it? How are you forming it? Answer
2:25:15
Speaker 2: the pole question at real OC Sports. All right, we
2:25:20
Speaker 2: got to take a break. Cross Talk is next and
2:25:22
Speaker 2: we will give away some tickets. We've got mister Worldwide
2:25:26
Speaker 2: Pitbull coming into the studio and also coming to Salt
2:25:30
Speaker 2: Lake City on June third, and also PBR on February
2:25:33
Speaker 2: sixth and seventh at the Delta Center. I got tickets
2:25:35
Speaker 2: for both of those. If you can answer our tribute question,
2:25:38
Speaker 2: it's the Sean O'Connell show on ESPN seven hundred ninety
2:25:41
Speaker 2: two ONEFM.
2:25:49
Speaker 1: You tune to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoc
2:25:51
Speaker 1: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred at ninety two one
2:25:56
Speaker 1: a half.
2:25:56
Speaker 2: Am eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred
2:26:02
Speaker 2: trivia question for tickets to PBR at the Delta Center.
2:26:08
Speaker 2: February sixth and seventh is when the Professional bull Riders
2:26:10
Speaker 2: are coming. Also pit Bull tickets Utah First Credit Union
2:26:14
Speaker 2: Amphitheater on June third, the Utah Jazz Fell victim to
2:26:20
Speaker 2: the Golden State Warriors last night at the Delta Center.
2:26:24
Speaker 2: One hundred and forty points they gave up. And I
2:26:28
Speaker 2: was complaining about this at the start of the show.
2:26:31
Speaker 2: That used to be an All Star game number, that
2:26:33
Speaker 2: used to be an overtime game number, and now it's
2:26:37
Speaker 2: relatively commonplace to see in regular season basketball. And for
2:26:40
Speaker 2: the Utah Jazz to give up one thirty one, one
2:26:44
Speaker 2: forty seven whatever. How many games this year so far
2:26:49
Speaker 2: had the Utah Jazz held an opponent under one hundred
2:26:52
Speaker 2: points eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred.
2:26:55
Speaker 2: How many times as the Jazz defense stopped their opponent,
2:27:00
Speaker 2: whoever that opponent is, it'll win or a loss from
2:27:04
Speaker 2: scoring one hundred points eight seven seven three five three
2:27:07
Speaker 2: zero seven hundred. If you know the answer to the question,
2:27:09
Speaker 2: I've got Pitbull tickets and PBR tickets for you. We
2:27:13
Speaker 2: welcome Spence. Check its in for crosstalk, brought to you
2:27:16
Speaker 2: by Advanced Window Products. He had at wont eight five
2:27:18
Speaker 2: h ninety one twenty five hundred dollars off ten windows
2:27:21
Speaker 2: or more from Nate Orchard, Jake Weber and Company.
2:27:25
Speaker 7: I Spence, their defensive effort is offensive dude like watching
2:27:29
Speaker 7: them every night and it's it's really odd because Will
2:27:33
Speaker 7: Hardy after the game last night looked like, uh, he
2:27:37
Speaker 7: had had it and he was frustrated.
2:27:39
Speaker 2: You know.
2:27:39
Speaker 7: He complained about the lack of physicality, the lack of
2:27:42
Speaker 7: close out, the lack of effort.
2:27:44
Speaker 2: But this is the third straight year.
2:27:46
Speaker 7: I will not say the number in this microphone because
2:27:49
Speaker 7: I don't know the number, but my guess is they
2:27:50
Speaker 7: haven't held very many teams under.
2:27:52
Speaker 2: One hundred points all year long.
2:27:54
Speaker 7: And the Golden State obviously with Steve Kerb you know,
2:27:57
Speaker 7: modern offensive, brilliant scheme with the gravity effect of Stephen Curry.
2:28:02
Speaker 7: But I can't remember watching a basketball team this consistently
2:28:05
Speaker 7: that cares less about trying to push back defensively.
2:28:09
Speaker 2: It's an offensive defensive team. Do you want to know
2:28:11
Speaker 2: the answer? I would like to know the answer. Can
2:28:14
Speaker 2: I guess? Yeah? Is it zero? It's zero time? It's
2:28:18
Speaker 2: zero times. That's what I thought. That's so ridiculous. Congratulations
2:28:22
Speaker 2: to thirty nine thirty nine on the text line, shout
2:28:24
Speaker 2: out thirty nine thirty nine, Yeah, zero times, and look,
2:28:28
Speaker 2: part of that's the whole NBA. The best defensive team
2:28:31
Speaker 2: in the league. Right now is giving up one hundred
2:28:32
Speaker 2: and eight points a game. Yeah, I went back. I
2:28:35
Speaker 2: said that's a lot, And I just scrolled back ten
2:28:39
Speaker 2: years and ten years ago the San Antonio Spurs were
2:28:43
Speaker 2: the best defense in the regular season and they were
2:28:46
Speaker 2: giving up ninety three points a game. So we have
2:28:49
Speaker 2: a fifteen point swing between the twenty fifteen and sixteen
2:28:53
Speaker 2: season and the twenty five to twenty six season. By
2:28:56
Speaker 2: the way, fifteen sixteen, the Jazz were the second best
2:28:59
Speaker 2: in the league offensively. Yeah.
2:29:01
Speaker 7: Yeah, and look the your point. You know, the league
2:29:03
Speaker 7: has changed, the game has changed, the rules have changed.
2:29:07
Speaker 7: And this was kind of a slow slow burn that
2:29:09
Speaker 7: started in the nineties as a result of my belove
2:29:12
Speaker 7: of New York Knicks, who would play the Miami Heat
2:29:15
Speaker 7: in the playoffs and the final score would be like
2:29:16
Speaker 7: seventy two to sixty eight, and starts like we can't
2:29:19
Speaker 7: do this, like this is ridiculous. So they've changed it
2:29:22
Speaker 7: to allow for freedom of movement. They've changed it where
2:29:24
Speaker 7: you can't hand check. The game is officiated differently. But
2:29:27
Speaker 7: the other thing is this the skill across the landscape
2:29:30
Speaker 7: of the NBA and quite frankly college basketball too, is
2:29:33
Speaker 7: it's heightened. It's so much better. You know, when you
2:29:35
Speaker 7: and I were growing up, if you were a quote big,
2:29:38
Speaker 7: if you were a center or a power forward, you
2:29:40
Speaker 7: spent practice catching the basketball on the block, two foot
2:29:44
Speaker 7: paint catches, layups and dunks. And if you had the
2:29:47
Speaker 7: goal to step outside, a coach would tell you. Know,
2:29:49
Speaker 7: you're tall, so you're gonna get rebounds in block shots.
2:29:52
Speaker 2: You better not dribble. Yeah, please, don't you dare dribble.
2:29:54
Speaker 7: Give it to the guard, you know, And now we
2:29:56
Speaker 7: have now the league is essentially roster. This is what
2:30:00
Speaker 7: you want, and this is what Danny Angels trying to
2:30:02
Speaker 7: do with the Jazz and watching Ace Bailey do.
2:30:04
Speaker 2: That kid is so special.
2:30:06
Speaker 7: You want rosters of players between like six five and
2:30:09
Speaker 7: seven to two, or if you're Wembin Yama seven to
2:30:11
Speaker 7: eight or whatever the hell he is, he's we don't know, Yeah,
2:30:14
Speaker 7: who can dribble, pass and shoot, make plays for others,
2:30:17
Speaker 7: guard multiple positions, switch on defense, And that's really what
2:30:21
Speaker 7: we're seeing. You know, there just isn't It makes Gobert
2:30:24
Speaker 7: like an absolute unicorn. He's just so special defensively that
2:30:28
Speaker 7: you just deal with the other stuff. But yeah, it's
2:30:32
Speaker 7: led to this offensive explosion. But comes spring basketball and
2:30:35
Speaker 7: we're just a few months away from this. If you
2:30:37
Speaker 7: can't guard, you will not win in the postseason. That's
2:30:40
Speaker 7: still a thing. Well, that's the weird thing about it.
2:30:42
Speaker 2: For me. I understand all the television ratings and do it.
2:30:45
Speaker 2: But when you go to postseason stats, all those points,
2:30:50
Speaker 2: like subtract twenty points from every over under total. Yeah,
2:30:54
Speaker 2: because suddenly they all care. And I don't know how
2:30:58
Speaker 2: you do that from I was asking Gordon about this
2:31:00
Speaker 2: from a coaching standpoint. I don't know how you do
2:31:02
Speaker 2: it from a coaching standpoint where you're like, do you
2:31:04
Speaker 2: guys care about playing defense? No? Yeah, you don't. Well,
2:31:09
Speaker 2: now that the playoffs are here, start caring about playing defense. Yeah.
2:31:12
Speaker 7: It's an excellent point, because, you know, it's almost like
2:31:16
Speaker 7: watching a different sport. Watching playoff basketball is almost like
2:31:20
Speaker 7: watching a different sport than the regular season. My concerned
2:31:23
Speaker 7: about the way the coaching staff with the Jazz are
2:31:26
Speaker 7: going about their business. His habits are hard to break,
2:31:29
Speaker 7: you know, and and losing sets in winning and losing,
2:31:32
Speaker 7: they're both They're winning and losing are both habitual and
2:31:35
Speaker 7: they're both baked into your process, like the other night
2:31:38
Speaker 7: when I saw the tweet like, hey, Will Hardy won
2:31:41
Speaker 7: his one hundredth game, I was like, he only has
2:31:42
Speaker 7: one hundred wins, Like what you know? And it's Look,
2:31:47
Speaker 7: the walking line about Will is simply like, he's a
2:31:49
Speaker 7: bright young coach, he's a rising star in the ranks.
2:31:52
Speaker 7: And look, I'm not sitting here saying that he's not.
2:31:55
Speaker 7: I'm sitting here saying he's the coach of a team that,
2:31:57
Speaker 7: for the third straight year, is historically pathetic defensively.
2:32:01
Speaker 2: So how much of that is personnel? Probably most of it.
2:32:04
Speaker 7: And again when he talks about defensive concepts, they make sense.
2:32:07
Speaker 7: I'm like, okay, but are you coaching this? And then
2:32:10
Speaker 7: the undercurrent is are you bad defensively on purpose? So
2:32:14
Speaker 7: you can lose these games because Austin Ange lied to
2:32:17
Speaker 7: you and lied to all of us as a result of.
2:32:19
Speaker 2: He would never They would never do that. They just
2:32:21
Speaker 2: tell us the truth all the time. Oh, that is
2:32:24
Speaker 2: typically how it goes with professional sports, Francis. So what
2:32:27
Speaker 2: you're saying is they're going to trade for Giannis in
2:32:29
Speaker 2: the next week. That's what I assume is going to happen.
2:32:33
Speaker 7: The Jazz could one hundred percent come up with the
2:32:35
Speaker 7: best package for Gianna Santa Tokombo one hundred percent.
2:32:38
Speaker 2: I put the poll question out there. Does that make
2:32:40
Speaker 2: them a contender?
2:32:41
Speaker 5: No?
2:32:42
Speaker 2: Of course not, so you don't do it.
2:32:43
Speaker 5: I know.
2:32:44
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, like, if Austin Kuzma with him, then
2:32:47
Speaker 2: you're a contender. Guy KU's and you have the link
2:32:51
Speaker 2: to his great days at the Utes, and you've got
2:32:54
Speaker 2: another wag that you want in the ranks. Is Kyle married.
2:33:00
Speaker 7: I don't know if they're married, but he's he has
2:33:02
Speaker 7: a partner that's somewhat in it, Like maybe she could
2:33:04
Speaker 7: be on the Real Housewive you sult Oh.
2:33:06
Speaker 2: I have no idea who this person is. Who is it?
2:33:09
Speaker 2: She's a model, like an Instagram model, I think, like
2:33:13
Speaker 2: a real like print model.
2:33:14
Speaker 7: Okay, because like Instagram models. To me, it's like the
2:33:16
Speaker 7: same thing as like you're an Instagram therapist.
2:33:18
Speaker 2: No you're not.
2:33:18
Speaker 7: You read an Eckert Toll book and now you're posting
2:33:20
Speaker 7: on your social shut up.
2:33:21
Speaker 2: She has that the what's the pigmentation where you lose
2:33:25
Speaker 2: the pigmentation in your skin?
2:33:27
Speaker 7: Oh, I was gonna say, I's gonna say halopecia, But
2:33:31
Speaker 7: that's the hair thing.
2:33:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's video. She's got that. Okay, I'll
2:33:37
Speaker 2: have to look her up. I do not know who
2:33:38
Speaker 2: she is.
2:33:40
Speaker 7: Kho's has always confused me as an NBA player because
2:33:43
Speaker 7: he has stretches where you're like, all right, and he's
2:33:46
Speaker 7: had a hell of her career. He's made a lot
2:33:47
Speaker 7: of money, he's never impacted winning. Wherever he's been, the
2:33:50
Speaker 7: team has always gotten worse, even if he puts up numbers.
2:33:53
Speaker 2: It's a weird thing.
2:33:54
Speaker 7: But now the Jazz will not trade for your honest
2:33:57
Speaker 7: and they're an unseious team defensively. It's tough to watch
2:34:00
Speaker 7: every single night, but it was fun to see the
2:34:02
Speaker 7: Warriors last night.
2:34:03
Speaker 2: So there's that.
2:34:03
Speaker 7: Before you go, I just I need to give you
2:34:05
Speaker 7: the credit because you do a really elite job of
2:34:10
Speaker 7: thought provoking football related questions as it pertains to the utes.
2:34:14
Speaker 7: So I'm driving in listening the Sean O'Connell show as
2:34:16
Speaker 7: I often wont to do, and all of you should
2:34:19
Speaker 7: as well, since we're now in the two o'clock hour.
2:34:21
Speaker 7: The pole question when you set it on air, my
2:34:24
Speaker 7: initial reaction was, yeah, get all the five star former
2:34:28
Speaker 7: USC dudes. But as you explained it certainly as it
2:34:31
Speaker 7: pertains to the way Utah football has been built. I
2:34:34
Speaker 7: think it does make more sense to, you know, grab
2:34:36
Speaker 7: the Devin Dampier from New Mexico who has something to prove.
2:34:40
Speaker 2: It just it makes more sense for Utah. And you're
2:34:44
Speaker 2: probably not going to be in the running for a
2:34:46
Speaker 2: lot of those five star and four star at elite
2:34:48
Speaker 2: level guys. Now, you shouldn't just capitulate you are going
2:34:51
Speaker 2: to be in the running for some of them coming
2:34:52
Speaker 2: out of high school and even if they want to
2:34:54
Speaker 2: leave wherever usc is your example or like sure, but
2:34:59
Speaker 2: I I specifically mentioned in the question the backbone of
2:35:03
Speaker 2: the team, and the backbone of the team is the
2:35:05
Speaker 2: bulk of your team. It is the thing, It is
2:35:07
Speaker 2: your culture. And the modern translation of what Utah has
2:35:12
Speaker 2: always been good at. The under recruited two three star
2:35:15
Speaker 2: guy that you developed, developed develop that now is not
2:35:19
Speaker 2: the high school kid that you keep in your program
2:35:22
Speaker 2: for three years. There's no patience for that. Yeah, the
2:35:25
Speaker 2: high school kids won't do that anymore.
2:35:27
Speaker 5: So.
2:35:28
Speaker 2: The modern analogy to that is the kid who wishes
2:35:32
Speaker 2: he'd been at Utah from the start, but he was
2:35:35
Speaker 2: an inch too short or a tenth of a second
2:35:37
Speaker 2: too slow on his forty. So he went to UNLV,
2:35:41
Speaker 2: he went to Utah State and he produced and then
2:35:44
Speaker 2: somebody was just like, huh, seventy eight tackles, let's see
2:35:49
Speaker 2: what he could do here. Yeah, that's what you got
2:35:52
Speaker 2: to target.
2:35:52
Speaker 7: And that's the bulk of this incoming transfer class, right.
2:35:56
Speaker 7: I mean the Oklahoma kid, I guess, but he was
2:35:58
Speaker 7: a red shirt who didn't play. But yeah, it's a
2:36:01
Speaker 7: lot of San Jose State Juco kids, you know. And
2:36:04
Speaker 7: so now it's on Morgan and the staff to develop them.
2:36:07
Speaker 7: And I was thinking about it through the prism of
2:36:09
Speaker 7: like the offensive line specifically, because that it just cannot go.
2:36:14
Speaker 7: We can't talk about enough how advantageous it was a
2:36:17
Speaker 7: year ago, and how any expectation for this team has
2:36:21
Speaker 7: to be steeped in what does that look like under Jordan.
2:36:23
Speaker 2: So we'll see, we will see a big Thanks Derek
2:36:26
Speaker 2: Weddle and Jordan Gross for about five seconds joining us
2:36:29
Speaker 2: on the show too. That was great, very nice. Stay
2:36:31
Speaker 2: tuned for the drive. Porter. Thank you for sitting in
2:36:34
Speaker 2: double duty today from Porter Larson. My pleasure. Appreciate your
2:36:37
Speaker 2: contributions to the show. We'll do it again tomorrow. ESPN
2:36:41
Speaker 2: seven hundred and ninety two ONEFM Sean O'Connell Show