Latest / The Sean O'Connell Show / Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 5-5-26
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: He's the Sean O'Connell Show, brought to you by Big
- 0:11Speaker 1: Willies on Utah's number one sports talk and home of
- 0:14Speaker 1: the ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one a half am,
- 0:18Speaker 1: a proud part of Utah's ESPN Radio Network.
- 0:30Speaker 2: Welcome everybody to the Shat O'Connell Show.
- 0:33Speaker 3: Happy Twoday, Happy to be with you. The show is
- 0:38Speaker 3: brought to you today and every day by a friend's
- 0:40Speaker 3: down at Big Willies, seventeen seventeen, South Maine, Utah's number
- 0:44Speaker 3: one sports bar, number one pool hall. I didn't decide that.
- 0:48Speaker 3: You decided that in a perfect place for you to
- 0:52Speaker 3: go watch.
- 0:52Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know.
- 0:53Speaker 3: Minnesota Wild Colorado Avalanche game two tonight. That'll be a
- 0:58Speaker 3: six pm puck drop. Maybe you get off work right
- 1:03Speaker 3: on time, right at five o'clock, go watch Calves Pistons,
- 1:09Speaker 3: even if you wander in around six thirty. Mountain Time,
- 1:12Speaker 3: Lakers OKC baseball on basically all day, big screens all
- 1:20Speaker 3: over the place, food specials, drink specials every single day.
- 1:26Speaker 3: Tell Moose he sent you down at Big Willies at
- 1:28Speaker 3: seventeen seventeen South Maine. Fun show lined up for you today,
- 1:33Speaker 3: Gordy Chiaza to talk about what's going on in the
- 1:36Speaker 3: NBA playoffs Broken Houston as the Mammoth have wrapped up
- 1:40Speaker 3: their season. I promised you we would give you some
- 1:43Speaker 3: Mammoth player sound from exit interviews yesterday. I didn't do
- 1:47Speaker 3: that because I'm bad at my job, but we're gonna
- 1:50Speaker 3: give you some today. Also Stormy bon and Tony she
- 1:55Speaker 3: was rinkside for the Las Vegas Golden Knights Utah Mammoth
- 2:00Speaker 3: ESPN broadcasts. We'll talk all things NHL. Maybe a little
- 2:05Speaker 3: college football with her, because of course you see Stormy
- 2:09Speaker 3: on the sidelines during football season as well.
- 2:12Speaker 5: It's gonna be a fun one.
- 2:15Speaker 3: And I have probably over indexed and spent more time
- 2:19Speaker 3: than necessary talking about the NHL playoffs, even without the
- 2:23Speaker 3: manavisend them.
- 2:24Speaker 5: Now, I can't help it.
- 2:26Speaker 3: I think that the vision of the NHL, the vision
- 2:29Speaker 3: of Smith Entertainment Group, I was the target demographic they
- 2:34Speaker 3: were looking for. They wanted to bring hockey to the
- 2:37Speaker 3: state of Utah to serve a fan base that has
- 2:41Speaker 3: not enough pro sports in this market, a fan base
- 2:45Speaker 3: that has clung desperately to the Utah Jazz that has
- 2:51Speaker 3: wrapped its arms around MLS soccer and Real Salt Lake,
- 2:55Speaker 3: even if they are not soccer died in the world
- 3:00Speaker 3: brought up on soccer and hockey.
- 3:02Speaker 5: I think that.
- 3:02Speaker 3: Soccer was probably the best example of why hockey can
- 3:05Speaker 3: work in Utah. I think that now hockey and soccer
- 3:11Speaker 3: together are a great example why baseball is going to
- 3:15Speaker 3: work in Utah when it shows up. I think that
- 3:18Speaker 3: BYU and Utah are great enough examples of why an
- 3:21Speaker 3: NFL team would work in Utah, but an NFL team
- 3:24Speaker 3: would work anywhere so well, maybe not Saint Louis. I
- 3:29Speaker 3: guess they've they tried that a couple of times and
- 3:33Speaker 3: it didn't exactly work out.
- 3:34Speaker 5: And in any case, I.
- 3:36Speaker 3: Think that I got sucked in to the NHL vortex
- 3:40Speaker 3: in the way that everyone hoped that it would happen.
- 3:45Speaker 3: I mean, and when I say everyone, I mean everyone
- 3:47Speaker 3: on the business side of things. We think we can
- 3:49Speaker 3: grab these people, and it's worked for a lot of you,
- 3:52Speaker 3: and I love that we have that.
- 3:54Speaker 5: To talk about now.
- 3:55Speaker 3: But the NBA is still, from a popularity standpoint, is
- 4:00Speaker 3: still well above where the NHL is out. I think
- 4:04Speaker 3: that one is maybe I think the NBA is holding
- 4:07Speaker 3: steady a little bit more I think the NHL hopefully
- 4:10Speaker 3: is growing and is on the rise and is climbing,
- 4:13Speaker 3: and that's that's.
- 4:14Speaker 5: Good for all of us.
- 4:16Speaker 3: But when you watch these NBA playoffs and you see
- 4:21Speaker 3: some of the dominant performances that are happening right now,
- 4:27Speaker 3: it's still a treat to take in the NBA. It's
- 4:32Speaker 3: easy for me, I don't know for you, it's easy
- 4:35Speaker 3: for me to forget that. You know, a lot of
- 4:39Speaker 3: these guys are still in there early early twenties, including
- 4:45Speaker 3: some of the very best players on the planet, and
- 4:49Speaker 3: you're you're getting to watch them kind of develop, grow
- 4:52Speaker 3: past these milestones, do things that they've never done in
- 4:57Speaker 3: their careers. Victor Winbin Yama last night, in his postgame
- 5:00Speaker 3: comments after a loss for most people, a surprise loss
- 5:04Speaker 3: by the San Antonio Spurs in Game one of that series,
- 5:08Speaker 3: Victor Webbinyama was pretty introspective. He talked about his energy management,
- 5:14Speaker 3: He talked about how he was doing things on the
- 5:16Speaker 3: offensive end of the floor that we're not helping his team.
- 5:19Speaker 3: I think that he's a special mind, and obviously he's
- 5:22Speaker 3: a special build and body in the sport of basketball,
- 5:26Speaker 3: and we're getting to see this product in high relief
- 5:32Speaker 3: in HD as it becomes the final product, and I'm
- 5:37Speaker 3: talking about just Victor winbin Yama's game in that case.
- 5:40Speaker 3: The other fun thing that happened last night in the
- 5:43Speaker 3: NBA Playoffs was ant Man forcing his way back into
- 5:46Speaker 3: the lineup despite the injury, saying he wanted to play,
- 5:51Speaker 3: and Minnesota handling it well having him come off the bench.
- 5:55Speaker 3: He played twenty five minutes, He scored eighteen points. He
- 5:58Speaker 3: was two or three from three point range. It was
- 6:01Speaker 3: a really really clean game from ant Man. It's like
- 6:06Speaker 3: the physical limitations of coming right back off an injury
- 6:10Speaker 3: probably being a lot less than one hundred percent, but
- 6:12Speaker 3: also there may be something magical for him about, Hey,
- 6:16Speaker 3: we're also bringing you off the bench, so there's not
- 6:20Speaker 3: a ton of pressure for you right now to be
- 6:23Speaker 3: the guy that carries us and for the second series
- 6:28Speaker 3: in a row, or at least the first game of
- 6:30Speaker 3: the second series in a row. The number one conversation
- 6:33Speaker 3: that you have to have about the Minnesota Timberwolves is
- 6:35Speaker 3: what they are defensively, the difficulties they cause for opposition
- 6:41Speaker 3: with their lineup, with their gigantic and pretty mobile lineup.
- 6:47Speaker 3: Rudy Gobert he had seven points. He was not exactly
- 6:52Speaker 3: hyper efficient offensively, but that's not his role.
- 6:55Speaker 5: Grab ten rebounds as well.
- 6:56Speaker 3: He only had one block shot, but he was instrumental
- 7:02Speaker 3: in keeping Victor webbin Yama off his game. And obviously
- 7:07Speaker 3: that's what Rudy is getting some flowers because of what
- 7:10Speaker 3: he did to Yo Kitchen the first series.
- 7:12Speaker 5: If he can.
- 7:13Speaker 3: Continue this and he's not going to outplay Victor wen Binyama,
- 7:16Speaker 3: I think it's important to be clear about that. He's
- 7:18Speaker 3: not going to be the better player over the course
- 7:21Speaker 3: of this series than Victor wenbin Yama is. But if
- 7:25Speaker 3: he is, he plays a significant role in just throwing
- 7:31Speaker 3: Victor wenbin Yama off his pace, then the Wolves could
- 7:35Speaker 3: actually win the series. Wemby was he had a triple
- 7:41Speaker 3: double last night. Not all triple doubles are created equal.
- 7:44Speaker 3: Obviously he had a triple double, fifteen rebounds, only eleven points.
- 7:48Speaker 3: He missed all three excuse me, all eight of his
- 7:52Speaker 3: three point attempts, which is a record for the Spurs
- 7:57Speaker 3: on the wrong end of things, They've never had somebody
- 7:59Speaker 3: miss eight three pointers in a playoff game. It's it
- 8:03Speaker 3: never happened, it's per's history. He scored eleven points.
- 8:07Speaker 4: He also had twelve bleeping blocks in this game.
- 8:11Speaker 6: Yeah, did you coc That was a record for the
- 8:14Speaker 6: number of blocks for a triple double in the playoffs.
- 8:17Speaker 6: That's more than Hakeem Olajuwon, who is the all time
- 8:22Speaker 6: leader in NBA history in blocks. That's more than and
- 8:26Speaker 6: you know, a guy who got way more triple doubles
- 8:28Speaker 6: than he got credit for for a guy his size,
- 8:32Speaker 6: that's more than he had in a playoff game in
- 8:36Speaker 6: uh with a triple double. And I blanking on the
- 8:38Speaker 6: other guy, but it was two other guys with that
- 8:41Speaker 6: with that kind of stat line, and Victor Webbin Yama
- 8:46Speaker 6: is the one with the most blocks. Didn't shoot it
- 8:48Speaker 6: well at all, as you said, but did everything else well,
- 8:53Speaker 6: particularly on the defensive end. The other funny thing about
- 8:56Speaker 6: that is Karl Anthony Towns in that clinching game over
- 9:00Speaker 6: the Hawks for the Knicks where they won by like
- 9:02Speaker 6: eighty points or whatever, he had a triple double only
- 9:06Speaker 6: shooting four shots. So we've had two of the most
- 9:10Speaker 6: unique triple doubles in playoff history over the last like
- 9:14Speaker 6: week in this year's playoffs.
- 9:18Speaker 3: So ant Man and the Wolves surprise the San Antonio Spurs.
- 9:22Speaker 3: They steal Game one, and Julius Randall twenty one points.
- 9:27Speaker 3: He played the most minutes. He played forty one minutes
- 9:29Speaker 3: in a playoff game. He ended up being the leader
- 9:34Speaker 3: for that team, for his team for actually, he led
- 9:36Speaker 3: all scores in this game. And Mike Conley was getting
- 9:42Speaker 3: a lot of love from ant Man. The Minnesota Timberwolves
- 9:46Speaker 3: are like the least sexy lineup without ant Man that
- 9:52Speaker 3: you can find in the NBA of good teams. Right then,
- 9:55Speaker 3: I shouldn't say that because the NBA has given us
- 9:57Speaker 3: some including our home town on Utah Jazz.
- 10:00Speaker 5: They've got some starting lineups in the G League teams.
- 10:03Speaker 6: Mastuading his NBA teams now in the playoffs day you
- 10:07Speaker 6: got a ten day contract, and also you're a starter,
- 10:10Speaker 6: like we've seen that from the tankathon teams about playoff teams,
- 10:14Speaker 6: I think, right if you're just like, hey, we're gonna
- 10:17Speaker 6: roll out, Julius random, the Knicks got tired of.
- 10:24Speaker 5: They're just like cool cool cool cool cool cool cool,
- 10:28Speaker 5: Rudy go back.
- 10:29Speaker 4: I'm gonna give you seven points. Baby.
- 10:32Speaker 3: You're just like that's it's not as a but ant
- 10:36Speaker 3: Man coming off the bench, and remember he was not
- 10:39Speaker 3: going to be available at least until Game three in
- 10:41Speaker 3: this series.
- 10:42Speaker 6: Incredibly fast recovery for him to just to be able
- 10:45Speaker 6: to play. He's still healing, obviously, he's playing hurd on
- 10:47Speaker 6: that hyper extended knee, and he's got the other knee
- 10:50Speaker 6: that's compromised a little bit too, But the fact that
- 10:53Speaker 6: he was able to play it all and play as
- 10:55Speaker 6: well as he did that incredible recovery.
- 10:57Speaker 3: The Lakers are dealing with similar things with Luka Doncic
- 11:02Speaker 3: right now. Luca, though, according to Reggie Miller this morning,
- 11:07Speaker 3: Luca is not playing in team scrimmages. He's not going
- 11:11Speaker 3: in actual five on five runs in practice yet. So
- 11:15Speaker 3: I don't think we're going to get a surprise appearance
- 11:18Speaker 3: by Luca at all. Oh okay, I don't mean to
- 11:22Speaker 3: take it aside here. The Carolina Hurricanes are currently on
- 11:25Speaker 3: my television in those horrifically awful sweaters, the home sweaters
- 11:32Speaker 3: that they wear with the the hurricane flags on a
- 11:36Speaker 3: hockey stick.
- 11:37Speaker 6: Yeah, what are those hurricane fights? I have not been
- 11:40Speaker 6: able to figure that out. Is that something? It's a
- 11:42Speaker 6: hurricane warning flag? Okay, the eye of the storm puck thing.
- 11:48Speaker 6: Their actual logo is so good though, why would they?
- 11:52Speaker 5: I don't know.
- 11:54Speaker 3: It's hideous red flag, red square with a black square
- 12:00Speaker 3: taking up the middle of the flag and indicates a
- 12:04Speaker 3: storm warning. If there's two of such flags, then it's
- 12:07Speaker 3: a hurricane. Maybe the worst logo at all of sports. Anyway,
- 12:15Speaker 3: that's my non sequitar I apologize for that.
- 12:18Speaker 6: That Wemby triple double, the twelve blocks. There's also a
- 12:22Speaker 6: single game playoff record, not just a playoff record for
- 12:26Speaker 6: blocks in a triple And.
- 12:28Speaker 3: I cannot tell you how the moral victory involved in
- 12:33Speaker 3: making sure that a record setting performance is just that
- 12:38Speaker 3: and not a win for the Minnesota Timberwolves to be like,
- 12:41Speaker 3: oh yeah, fine, have your unbelievable defensive day. Let this
- 12:46Speaker 3: be a lesson to you, though, If you expend that
- 12:48Speaker 3: much energy at the defensive end of the floor and
- 12:51Speaker 3: it takes away from whatever abilities you have on the
- 12:54Speaker 3: offensive end of the floor, We're going to find a
- 12:55Speaker 3: way to win these games. Victor Webbinyama's postgame comments he
- 12:59Speaker 3: talked about he was wasting energy on offense.
- 13:02Speaker 5: Well, he was using energy on defense. He didn't wasn't wasting.
- 13:06Speaker 3: It because he was getting blocks and he was successful
- 13:09Speaker 3: in doing what he's supposed to do on the defensive end.
- 13:12Speaker 5: But if you have, if you.
- 13:13Speaker 3: Got that Mortal Kombat power meter at the top of
- 13:16Speaker 3: your screen, and a bunch of that is being spent
- 13:20Speaker 3: on successful defense and then unsuccessful or inefficient offense.
- 13:26Speaker 5: Even Victor webbin Yama, this.
- 13:29Speaker 3: Unicorn alien, nobody else is built like him.
- 13:32Speaker 5: He's young, he's crazy like.
- 13:35Speaker 3: Even he can't keep it up indefinitely from an efforts standpoint,
- 13:39Speaker 3: especially when his fellow countryman and a guy that he's
- 13:44Speaker 3: followed for a long time is there defensively trying to
- 13:47Speaker 3: stop him. Like the Minnesota Timberwolves are one of the very,
- 13:52Speaker 3: very very few teams out there who can at least
- 13:55Speaker 3: approximate the length battle with Wemby and force him to
- 14:01Speaker 3: try to get more of his offense done from the outside.
- 14:05Speaker 5: That's massive for them.
- 14:07Speaker 3: Now because of Victor Winmanielm's greatness, I think you're gonna
- 14:12Speaker 3: see him make the necessary adjustments and he's gonna outplay
- 14:16Speaker 3: Rudy Gobert.
- 14:17Speaker 5: In this series. But I'm telling you, for Minnesota to
- 14:21Speaker 5: even knock him off the pace changes the dynamic in
- 14:25Speaker 5: this series dramatically.
- 14:28Speaker 6: It absolutely does, and not just with Rudy by the way, Minnesota,
- 14:32Speaker 6: when they traded for Rudy, and they still had Karl
- 14:34Speaker 6: Anthony Towns, who's a seven foot or two, they don't
- 14:37Speaker 6: they don't have him anymore. But even without Towns, when
- 14:42Speaker 6: they traded for Rudy, they decided to make a bet that, hey,
- 14:45Speaker 6: if we can be bigger than everyone else and offensively,
- 14:49Speaker 6: if we can at the time, if we can use
- 14:51Speaker 6: a guy like Towns, who's great, who's a great three
- 14:54Speaker 6: point shooter for the size that he is, both his
- 14:58Speaker 6: weight and his height, there we can we can take
- 15:02Speaker 6: the league by storm. And it's worked so far, even
- 15:04Speaker 6: after they traded away Karl Anthony Towns, because nas Reed,
- 15:08Speaker 6: who's also basically a seven footer, has emerged as one
- 15:11Speaker 6: of the better offensive players coming off the bench certainly,
- 15:15Speaker 6: and a guy who could certainly start in this league.
- 15:18Speaker 6: He's another guy that gives them a lot of length.
- 15:22Speaker 6: It's so it's not just Rudy. They can throw lots
- 15:25Speaker 6: of big guys at Wemby at the Spurs. I'm not sure,
- 15:30Speaker 6: like you, I'm not sure it's gonna be enough. Because
- 15:32Speaker 6: Wemby's talent is that great. If he can just get
- 15:36Speaker 6: be efficient on offense, and that's what he's learning how
- 15:40Speaker 6: to do. Still, the defense is kind of a naturally
- 15:43Speaker 6: dominating thing about him. He's learning to be efficient offensively.
- 15:47Speaker 3: Yeah, if he makes one of those three porters, then
- 15:49Speaker 3: that's over. The game makes up the margin. Yeah, what
- 15:54Speaker 3: it does though, when I see this, right we talk
- 15:59Speaker 3: about this potential for a Utah Jazz lineup to have
- 16:04Speaker 3: Walker Kessler, Trey j Jared Jackson Junior, we still workshop
- 16:10Speaker 3: and Lowry as like these these three towers in the middle.
- 16:17Speaker 5: I think it helps you at least it helps me.
- 16:24Speaker 3: Envision and opportunity, maybe not to beat Okac, maybe not
- 16:27Speaker 3: to be a real problem for them in the near future.
- 16:31Speaker 3: But Okay, if if you can collaborate size wise and
- 16:36Speaker 3: slow Wenby down, you're never gonna stop him.
- 16:38Speaker 5: But if you can slow Wenby down and you can
- 16:39Speaker 5: force the other.
- 16:40Speaker 3: Guys to beat you, you still got to get better
- 16:43Speaker 3: perimeter defense wise, defensive league period. This Jazz team's gonna
- 16:47Speaker 3: have to be a lot better and close that gap.
- 16:49Speaker 3: But if you can approximate a little bit of what
- 16:53Speaker 3: Minnesota is and has done in their front court, which,
- 16:58Speaker 3: by the way, I don't want to be disrespectful too,
- 17:00Speaker 3: like Rudy Gobert is a multiple time Defensive Player of
- 17:04Speaker 3: the Year, and for the Utah Jazz, I think Walker
- 17:08Speaker 3: Kessler can be a real factor and I hope that
- 17:11Speaker 3: he is part of their plans the way that I
- 17:12Speaker 3: envisioned him being part of their plans. And obviously Jaron
- 17:16Speaker 3: Jackson Junior was brought in to be exactly that the
- 17:19Speaker 3: defensive presence. He doesn't have the same level of size
- 17:22Speaker 3: and length that Rudy Gobert does. But if you can
- 17:27Speaker 3: be the poor man's front court, maybe that gets you
- 17:31Speaker 3: over the hump against some of the other problems you
- 17:34Speaker 3: have in the Western Conference, like the Denver Nuggets barring
- 17:37Speaker 3: any wild changes there, like this San Antonio Spurs team
- 17:43Speaker 3: even potentially but the also rans. Maybe it makes you
- 17:48Speaker 3: more of a threat against some of the teams that
- 17:50Speaker 3: are relying on size inside offensively.
- 17:54Speaker 5: I'm not sure.
- 17:55Speaker 3: I don't know, but one of my problems with where
- 17:58Speaker 3: we're at with the Utah Jazz right now has been awesome.
- 18:01Speaker 3: I think we get to turn it on next year
- 18:03Speaker 3: and this team is going to be better.
- 18:06Speaker 5: Better is still.
- 18:08Speaker 4: I think a long, long, long long.
- 18:10Speaker 3: Way from being good enough, given what other teams have
- 18:13Speaker 3: in the West right now. But styles make fights, man,
- 18:16Speaker 3: and the matchups that we are seeing right now, the
- 18:20Speaker 3: Timberwolves being the best example of this, You're just like, Okay,
- 18:25Speaker 3: you might not be built to destroy everybody in the league.
- 18:28Speaker 5: You might not be built to take out everyone in
- 18:30Speaker 5: the league.
- 18:30Speaker 3: I don't think the Minnesota Timberwolves and what they're good
- 18:33Speaker 3: at right now translates as well against even the Lakers,
- 18:37Speaker 3: certainly not against OKC. But progress is something, and I
- 18:45Speaker 3: know for them, because they've been oh so close, there's
- 18:48Speaker 3: no moral victory in like, hey, like we are the
- 18:51Speaker 3: stoppers of the Nuggets and maybe, just maybe we are
- 18:55Speaker 3: the stoppers of the Spurs. I know for them that
- 18:57Speaker 3: will not be good enough where the Jazz are at
- 18:59Speaker 3: and their journey. If you could be the stoppers of
- 19:01Speaker 3: even one playoff team in the West in this next season,
- 19:06Speaker 3: I'm gonna be like, all right, there's a vision here.
- 19:08Speaker 5: There's some good things.
- 19:09Speaker 4: Now.
- 19:09Speaker 3: We got to get better, better three point shooting, better
- 19:12Speaker 3: perimeter play. And if that experiment that I think is
- 19:16Speaker 3: being put on the floor next year gives you something
- 19:19Speaker 3: like what we're seeing from Minnesota, I'm buying on it.
- 19:23Speaker 3: I'm like that's that's gonna make me feel a lot
- 19:25Speaker 3: better about where this franchise is at.
- 19:27Speaker 6: What's so hard to swallow about Minnesota's success the last
- 19:33Speaker 6: three years, They've gone to back to back Western Conference Finals,
- 19:36Speaker 6: By the way, I feel like, I feel like that's
- 19:38Speaker 6: like the quietest back to back Western Conference Finals run,
- 19:41Speaker 6: especially for a franchise who'd only been to one in
- 19:45Speaker 6: their existence before that, and it was twenty years before.
- 19:47Speaker 5: But I digress.
- 19:49Speaker 6: What's a little bit hard to swallow about this is
- 19:53Speaker 6: this version of the Minnesota Timberwolves is basically the version
- 19:57Speaker 6: that of the Utah Jazz that they hope to be
- 20:00Speaker 6: before they blew it up.
- 20:02Speaker 5: And they did it. They did it better.
- 20:05Speaker 6: It's a better version of what the Jazz did with
- 20:08Speaker 6: Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert four or five years ago.
- 20:11Speaker 6: The team that went was the one seed and lost
- 20:13Speaker 6: in to the Clippers in in uh in tragic fashion.
- 20:17Speaker 7: Right.
- 20:17Speaker 6: And the other thing that makes it hard to swallow
- 20:20Speaker 6: about that is they is the t Wolves have Jade McDaniels,
- 20:23Speaker 6: who is the guy they should have the Jazz should
- 20:25Speaker 6: have picked instead of Udoka as a bookie in the
- 20:27Speaker 6: first round. The guy that was the guy that was
- 20:29Speaker 6: there for the Jazz to take, and they they inexplicably
- 20:32Speaker 6: took uh Udoka as a bookie who probably should have
- 20:36Speaker 6: been a second round pick, if if not if drafted
- 20:39Speaker 6: at all in that in that draft. So they are
- 20:43Speaker 6: and and Anthony Edwards is a little bit taller version
- 20:46Speaker 6: and better defender than Donovan Mitchell. But he's the swagger
- 20:49Speaker 6: like don has that Anthony Edwards swagger, he has that
- 20:51Speaker 6: scoring ability like the Jazz could have been this version
- 20:55Speaker 6: of the te Wolves if they made one more decision,
- 20:58Speaker 6: one different decision, probably drafting Jaden McDaniels, and if the
- 21:03Speaker 6: chemistry was better. Obviously, this this te Wolves team you
- 21:06Speaker 6: can tell loves playing for each other. And because they
- 21:10Speaker 6: chose wisely on the kind of perimeter defenders and making
- 21:15Speaker 6: a bet on Rudy Gobert, the grit that they have
- 21:19Speaker 6: is what helps them advance. As far as they've advanced,
- 21:22Speaker 6: it's just unfortunately it's been a talent gap.
- 21:25Speaker 5: Once they get to the Western Conference finals.
- 21:26Speaker 3: And I think that they should get more credit than
- 21:29Speaker 3: they are getting for that great and hopefully the conversation
- 21:34Speaker 3: around Anthony Edwards extra respect put on his name because
- 21:38Speaker 3: playoff basketball. You should be doing this right. If you're
- 21:42Speaker 3: a star player for a franchise, you should be playing
- 21:46Speaker 3: at significantly like you should be playing in a time
- 21:50Speaker 3: when the medical staff is just like it might actually
- 21:52Speaker 3: be in our in your best interest to like give
- 21:56Speaker 3: it a couple more games. I want pushback from my
- 21:59Speaker 3: star player on that. I think that the norm in
- 22:02Speaker 3: the NBA and in Major League Baseball and in the
- 22:05Speaker 3: NFL too much.
- 22:06Speaker 5: I think the norm now with a lot of these.
- 22:08Speaker 3: Professional athletes is to be like, what's that Doc says,
- 22:12Speaker 3: I can't go?
- 22:13Speaker 5: Okay, I can't go.
- 22:15Speaker 3: And I don't want to disparage and paint too broad
- 22:18Speaker 3: a brush because I know there are guys out there
- 22:20Speaker 3: and everyone plays hurt at the end of the season.
- 22:22Speaker 3: I'm not talking about hurt. Playing injured is something that
- 22:26Speaker 3: a lot of people just refuse to do.
- 22:27Speaker 4: For obvious reasons.
- 22:29Speaker 3: And it's okay if they don't, right, But if I'm
- 22:32Speaker 3: an owner, if I'm a hardcore fan, if when the
- 22:36Speaker 3: Utah Jazz are in a position to be in a
- 22:37Speaker 3: second round playoff series and it's just like this is
- 22:41Speaker 3: a Grade two sprain on the ankle, I want somebody
- 22:44Speaker 3: going well, tape it up and let me bleep and play.
- 22:48Speaker 6: Did you hear did you you watch much of the
- 22:50Speaker 6: broadcast last night? Did you hear it was Jordan Cornette
- 22:54Speaker 6: that was doing sidelines. He reported that Chris Finch was
- 22:58Speaker 6: trying because they're trying to do minutes restriction with him here, obviously,
- 23:02Speaker 6: and Chris Finch was trying to pull him out in
- 23:04Speaker 6: the second quarter, and Ant said, no, I'm good.
- 23:08Speaker 5: You can trust me.
- 23:09Speaker 6: I'm good, and he and he let him stay in
- 23:12Speaker 6: the game a little bit longer in the second quarter,
- 23:14Speaker 6: like so good.
- 23:15Speaker 3: It's we've gotten away from that thing too much in sports,
- 23:20Speaker 3: and like we're gonna have Gordia chays On in seven minutes, right,
- 23:24Speaker 3: And I guarantee you that Gordy from his era, that's
- 23:28Speaker 3: the norm. That behavior was the norm. That behavior was
- 23:32Speaker 3: what guys did. That's the reason that John and Carl
- 23:36Speaker 3: all personal problems. Aside from a basketball player standpoint, it
- 23:43Speaker 3: was just like I'm going to be there, I'm gonna
- 23:45Speaker 3: show up, I'm gonna play for my team.
- 23:47Speaker 4: Not because they.
- 23:48Speaker 3: Were genetic freaks who were constantly healthy, but because the
- 23:53Speaker 3: expectation they put on themselves that I think the franchise
- 23:56Speaker 3: put on them that the league culture itself put on
- 23:59Speaker 3: players at that time was just like, yeah, show up
- 24:01Speaker 3: and earn your damn paycheck.
- 24:03Speaker 5: And we've gotten away from that. In all professional sports.
- 24:06Speaker 3: You've got load management, you've got rest, and if you
- 24:10Speaker 3: do that in the playoffs, you're gonna lose fans. If
- 24:14Speaker 3: that becomes the conversation when the games are this high stakes,
- 24:19Speaker 3: then the fifty five year old father of four is
- 24:23Speaker 3: gonna be like, dude, I can't anymore with this, this
- 24:26Speaker 3: twenty five year old guy. I need him to be
- 24:29Speaker 3: out there. And people are gonna migrate to sports like hockey.
- 24:32Speaker 3: People are gonna migrate to the combat sports. People are
- 24:35Speaker 3: gonna migrate to where on display constantly are these things
- 24:38Speaker 3: that we value in athletes, work, ethic, toughness, all the
- 24:43Speaker 3: things that your regular job doesn't demand of you.
- 24:46Speaker 5: That's what you want to see in pro sports.
- 24:49Speaker 3: And I'm probably overreacting here, but Anthony Edwards telling his
- 24:53Speaker 3: own coach, his own team doctor, let me handle this
- 24:59Speaker 3: is no longer the Norman is something that I absolutely love,
- 25:03Speaker 3: even if it's coming off the bench. And obviously he
- 25:05Speaker 3: played incredibly well, so when he says, hey, you gotta
- 25:09Speaker 3: trust me, absolutely, you do good for him. On the
- 25:14Speaker 3: opposite end of the spectrum is where the Philadelphia seventy
- 25:17Speaker 3: six ers were last night.
- 25:18Speaker 6: Who speaking of another Knicks blowout. That's three straight games
- 25:22Speaker 6: of twenty five point or more deficits.
- 25:25Speaker 3: And suddenly everyone's just like, it's the Knicks coming out
- 25:28Speaker 3: of the East. I mean, I'm listening to the radio
- 25:30Speaker 3: this morning as I'm driving in and Reggie Miller and
- 25:32Speaker 3: Dan Patrick are talking, and it's just a foregone conclusion.
- 25:36Speaker 3: Suddenly that all right, let's say it's gonna be the
- 25:38Speaker 3: Knicks out of the East. Is it okay?
- 25:41Speaker 4: See?
- 25:41Speaker 3: Is it San Antonio? Can Minnesota actually get there? Can Lebron?
- 25:45Speaker 3: There have been a conversation about if Lebron can drag
- 25:48Speaker 3: this team through a bunch of time without Luca.
- 25:51Speaker 5: It's not happening against Okase. I don't think. I don't
- 25:54Speaker 5: think it is either our national media Laker lovers.
- 25:57Speaker 3: And unfortunately, the conversation with that Lebron always goes back
- 26:01Speaker 3: to can he do something with these playoffs to leapfrog
- 26:05Speaker 3: Michael Jordan? And then it got into the semantic who's
- 26:08Speaker 3: the best player, who's the greatest player?
- 26:10Speaker 7: Stop?
- 26:11Speaker 5: Yeah, it bores me absolutely.
- 26:14Speaker 3: But the foregone conclusion suddenly being that it is the
- 26:19Speaker 3: Knicks coming out of the East is.
- 26:20Speaker 5: Because of these big blowout wins.
- 26:22Speaker 3: It's also because when you watch the Philadelphia seventy six
- 26:25Speaker 3: ers and they pull the starters to rest them at
- 26:28Speaker 3: the end of the game because it's a blowout and
- 26:30Speaker 3: it's a foregone conclusion, and they're yucking it up on
- 26:35Speaker 3: the bench and they're joking with one another. It is
- 26:37Speaker 3: the most horrendous look possible, even if like by all means,
- 26:43Speaker 3: don't let it ruin your nights. You're a professional athlete.
- 26:47Speaker 3: You know it's a seven game series. You can bounce back.
- 26:52Speaker 3: Understand that there's an arena full of fans. Understand that
- 26:55Speaker 3: there's millions of people watching. Understand that there are folks
- 26:58Speaker 3: that expect you to care a lot more than it
- 27:00Speaker 3: looks like you care. And I'm not suggesting they don't
- 27:03Speaker 3: actually care, because clearly they do their NBA players, But
- 27:08Speaker 3: the self awareness or the lack of self awareness to
- 27:11Speaker 3: think that when your team is getting blown out, this
- 27:14Speaker 3: is not a regular season, it's not game number seventy
- 27:16Speaker 3: six on the schedule, where we've all kind of gotten
- 27:19Speaker 3: sick of it. It's not Game number fifteen where none
- 27:22Speaker 3: of us are really invested emotionally. Yet this is a
- 27:25Speaker 3: playoff game, and Joel Embiid, mister street close, is laughing
- 27:31Speaker 3: on the bench while his team gets blown out by
- 27:33Speaker 3: forty in the playoffs.
- 27:36Speaker 4: What are you doing?
- 27:37Speaker 6: What's a it's a fundamental lack of understanding of the
- 27:41Speaker 6: city you play in too, Like that is Philadelphia sports
- 27:46Speaker 6: radio is probably killing them for that.
- 27:48Speaker 3: Someone's gonna someone's gonna throw a battery at him from
- 27:51Speaker 3: their stands, and like, listen, whether you there's a lot
- 27:55Speaker 3: of people that don't like the Philly sports culture.
- 27:58Speaker 6: They think it's it's too much, it's too intense, it's
- 28:01Speaker 6: too it's too obnoxious, whatever, whatever your opinion of that.
- 28:05Speaker 6: Of that is when you are the star player or
- 28:09Speaker 6: even a starter on one of those teams that has
- 28:12Speaker 6: a decent chance at winning something notable in a championship
- 28:17Speaker 6: or making a really deep playoff run like these Sixers do,
- 28:19Speaker 6: especially after they knock out everyone's favorite to win the
- 28:23Speaker 6: East in the first round, you gotta have enough respect
- 28:27Speaker 6: for your fan base to give them what they expect, right, Like.
- 28:33Speaker 3: That's I don't even care if you're acting I don't
- 28:35Speaker 3: even care if you're sitting on the bench pretending to
- 28:39Speaker 3: be mad. Just do the thing you're supposed to do
- 28:44Speaker 3: and at least pretend, at least go through the motions
- 28:47Speaker 3: of being an elite competitor.
- 28:49Speaker 4: When you're in the bleeping playoffs.
- 28:52Speaker 6: That's bad. That's a bad look no matter where they play.
- 28:54Speaker 6: But I just think of the identity of Philly and
- 28:58Speaker 6: the stereotype of Philly.
- 29:00Speaker 5: It's like I would be livid.
- 29:03Speaker 3: If I would be I would be like, I don't
- 29:06Speaker 3: want I don't want to root for these guys.
- 29:08Speaker 5: They're not one of us.
- 29:09Speaker 3: How often did we see that from a Utah Jazz
- 29:12Speaker 3: team this year who wasn't even trying to win, where
- 29:16Speaker 3: the players in a loss are just like like, you
- 29:21Speaker 3: didn't even see that from the Jazz a group of
- 29:24Speaker 3: young guys that have zero expectations to be anything this
- 29:29Speaker 3: whole trust to process. We're gonna do it our way,
- 29:32Speaker 3: we're gonna win. Oh, look we got MB and he's
- 29:33Speaker 3: healthy this year. Come on, And and that's your behavior
- 29:37Speaker 3: is I don't want to I don't want to overreact
- 29:40Speaker 3: to microcosm things like a joke on the bench is fine,
- 29:45Speaker 3: But in that scenario. It's well beneath the level of
- 29:50Speaker 3: respect you have to show your fan base and the
- 29:54Speaker 3: NBA at large. We'll talk more about the important things,
- 29:59Speaker 3: not that the important part of these NBA playoffs with
- 30:03Speaker 3: Gordy Chiasa.
- 30:03Speaker 5: He's going to join us next. We're rolling on a Tuesday.
- 30:06Speaker 3: It's ESPN seven hundred and ninety two ONEFM.
- 30:14Speaker 5: Peace out.
- 30:14Speaker 1: Let's get the latest on the Utah Jazz with former
- 30:17Speaker 1: Jazz assistant coach Gordy Chiasa. He's forgotten more about the
- 30:21Speaker 1: NBA than.
- 30:21Speaker 5: Any of us will ever know. Let's not get crazy.
- 30:24Speaker 5: Come for the hoops talk.
- 30:25Speaker 1: Stay for his list of the day our list today,
- 30:28Speaker 1: here's oc with basketball sob on Gordy Chiaysa on the
- 30:32Speaker 1: Sean O'Connell Show.
- 30:35Speaker 2: We welcome in our NBA guru to talks and playoff basketball.
- 30:39Speaker 4: Gordy Chiasa, welcome back to the show. How are you, sir, Sean.
- 30:43Speaker 8: I'm doing well, Thank you.
- 30:47Speaker 3: I just spent fifteen minutes ranting about my admiration for
- 30:51Speaker 3: Anthony Edwards forcing his way back into a Game one lineup,
- 30:54Speaker 3: coming off the bench, playing the way that he did,
- 30:57Speaker 3: you know, arguing with his own coach that he wants
- 30:59Speaker 3: to stay. Don't worry about min minutes restrictions. I'm good.
- 31:04Speaker 3: What did you make of his performance in Game one
- 31:06Speaker 3: in a Timberwolves win.
- 31:09Speaker 8: Very much. The whole thing said mentioned before is that
- 31:12Speaker 8: he wanted to win badly. Eleven points in the fourth quarter.
- 31:16Speaker 8: He delivered when they had to make baskets and plays.
- 31:19Speaker 8: He was right there. He he'ts emotional. That's to make
- 31:22Speaker 8: them such a terrific player where he wants to be
- 31:25Speaker 8: out there with his teammates. He goes last night in
- 31:28Speaker 8: the twenty five minutes. I'm sure next game he'll start,
- 31:32Speaker 8: and that's that's good. So they he was good. Caution
- 31:34Speaker 8: as far as not starting him, they tried to hold
- 31:37Speaker 8: him out much as they could. And now he's ready
- 31:39Speaker 8: to play, and so he's passionate. And then the NBA playoffs,
- 31:44Speaker 8: there's no tomorrow. That each game does matter, and so
- 31:47Speaker 8: did each possession, and he wants to be out with
- 31:49Speaker 8: his teammates. Also from a team standpoint, it's uplifting that
- 31:53Speaker 8: maybe he was doubtly he's going to play in the
- 31:57Speaker 8: first two games in this series, but he was able
- 31:59Speaker 8: to deliver, and now his teammates respect me even more.
- 32:05Speaker 3: Victor Weinbinyama had an historic but kind of strange game
- 32:09Speaker 3: last night. Dominant at the defensive end, really bad from
- 32:14Speaker 3: three point shooting last night. You know, he talked Postgabe
- 32:18Speaker 3: about how he needs to manage his energy better and
- 32:20Speaker 3: not waste things on the offensive end.
- 32:23Speaker 5: I'm curious how you evaluated.
- 32:25Speaker 3: His performance and more than why he was so bad
- 32:28Speaker 3: offensively last night.
- 32:31Speaker 8: Well, first thing is that they're being more physical with him,
- 32:34Speaker 8: and so Rudy Gobert and Nasried and all the guys
- 32:37Speaker 8: who were trying to guard him that they really got
- 32:39Speaker 8: after him. And so he shot five to seventeen and
- 32:42Speaker 8: he struggled in his second half to say that you
- 32:45Speaker 8: need to go two points and a two point loss
- 32:47Speaker 8: for his team. And add to that part of it
- 32:50Speaker 8: was just the whole thing where dispersa first game jitters
- 32:56Speaker 8: as far as even though the first round was really
- 32:58Speaker 8: easy for them, now each round gets even harder. And
- 33:02Speaker 8: Rudy Gobert is so purposed during the first two series
- 33:07Speaker 8: against Nikola Jokic. Now gats when Beyonmba is to try
- 33:10Speaker 8: to slow him down, and so there's much more physicality
- 33:14Speaker 8: and when Beyonba it takes years. But also in the meantime,
- 33:21Speaker 8: every possession you've got to be able to be mentally
- 33:23Speaker 8: strong and physically and so that's not think he's only
- 33:28Speaker 8: twenty two years old. His twelve blocks are phenomenal absolutely,
- 33:32Speaker 8: and that's ad the NBA record for most blocks in
- 33:35Speaker 8: a postseason beating out rajah On, Mark Eaton, and Andrew Binam.
- 33:41Speaker 8: So twelve blocks was great offensively from three point range,
- 33:46Speaker 8: He's got to be able to mix up better. Last night,
- 33:50Speaker 8: the two main players from the Spurs shown from three
- 33:53Speaker 8: point range, Victory and Beyonder and also Darren Fox. They
- 33:57Speaker 8: go oh for twelve and threes and a two point
- 34:00Speaker 8: and so next game those guys will be ready to
- 34:02Speaker 8: make shots and be more physical and velocity offensively.
- 34:11Speaker 3: In combat sports, there's an adage about how styles making
- 34:15Speaker 3: fights right that sometimes the matchup is more important than
- 34:19Speaker 3: your individual talent. How do you what you're good at
- 34:22Speaker 3: match up with what he's good at, and vice versa.
- 34:25Speaker 3: We saw that in the first round series with Minnesota
- 34:29Speaker 3: and the Denver Nuggets. Does their style match up well
- 34:32Speaker 3: with this San Antonio Spurs team in a way that
- 34:34Speaker 3: maybe other teams in the West don't.
- 34:38Speaker 8: Yes, very much. And also add to that as far
- 34:41Speaker 8: as experience, the chi Wolves have lost in the conference
- 34:45Speaker 8: finals back to back years. So in their world, they're
- 34:48Speaker 8: trying to get to the conference final, which is really
- 34:50Speaker 8: hard to do, being a final four three straight years
- 34:54Speaker 8: in the NBA, And so that their veterans are good
- 35:00Speaker 8: and the star player Anthony Edwards is a major talent,
- 35:03Speaker 8: just showed last night what he's all about as far
- 35:06Speaker 8: as about his teammates, and Julius Randel is a bully scorer,
- 35:11Speaker 8: and so the matchups for the t Wolves is that
- 35:15Speaker 8: it's very advantageous for them. At the flip side for
- 35:18Speaker 8: the San Antonio Spurs. Again, I'm not going to react
- 35:21Speaker 8: as a two point loss and Champenne shot, I thought
- 35:24Speaker 8: it was going to go down and win that game
- 35:26Speaker 8: from the left at the buzzer. That's that rhythm three
- 35:30Speaker 8: was wide open. But with that said, the reason why
- 35:33Speaker 8: they lost was the physicality of their Tea Wolves, and
- 35:37Speaker 8: that's a huge factor as far as understanding how to
- 35:40Speaker 8: mix up the three point shots and how you finish
- 35:44Speaker 8: mid range game and also how you drive to the basket.
- 35:48Speaker 8: And the t Wolves do match up with them, and we'll.
- 35:51Speaker 3: See Gordy Chase is our guest here on the shot
- 35:55Speaker 3: on Carlos Show Talk at All Things NBA Playoffs. The
- 36:00Speaker 3: Philadelphia seventy six ers went out with a whimper against
- 36:05Speaker 3: the New York Knicks. Now the Knicks are on the roll,
- 36:08Speaker 3: They're blowing people out, and was last night more about
- 36:12Speaker 3: the Knicks being dominant or about Philadelphia not being prepared.
- 36:17Speaker 8: Knicks being dominant. Yeah, Philadelphia coming up with an emotional
- 36:20Speaker 8: victory in Game seven, which is absolutely spectacular. However, they
- 36:26Speaker 8: had low energy, but part of it is because the
- 36:28Speaker 8: Knicks was so fast and Jalen Brunson showed his brilliance
- 36:32Speaker 8: as one of the best all time Nickabocker players with
- 36:36Speaker 8: thirty five points. He was brilliant twenty seven points in
- 36:39Speaker 8: the first half. So it was a combination of both.
- 36:42Speaker 8: Was more Knicks, Knicks said the record now in the
- 36:45Speaker 8: postseason where they've now have won three straight posted in
- 36:50Speaker 8: games by twenty five plus points or more. That's a
- 36:54Speaker 8: historical standard. It's never happened before where they're dominant. I
- 36:58Speaker 8: Dreel Embiid, who play very well in the first series.
- 37:02Speaker 8: Last night's game, he had no opposite rebounds, no blocks,
- 37:06Speaker 8: and no steals. He goes three for eleven. So they
- 37:09Speaker 8: can't win against Nickerbockers without Joel Embiid having a high
- 37:14Speaker 8: level game. And so the Knicks are ready to play.
- 37:17Speaker 8: They bleasted the seventy sixeres you mentioned pover thirty nine points.
- 37:22Speaker 8: I'm looking forward to now Game two Wednesday night in
- 37:24Speaker 8: the Garden. So now you're seventy six ers. You're going
- 37:27Speaker 8: to sit in New York City for a day and
- 37:29Speaker 8: a half on Midtown Manhattan, and wherever you go, people
- 37:33Speaker 8: are saying to you about you being chumps, et cetera.
- 37:36Speaker 8: I lived that life when I just played the Bulls,
- 37:38Speaker 8: the same scenario where collectively the players do rally. So
- 37:44Speaker 8: I'm looking at so Gibilli. The playoffs start in my
- 37:46Speaker 8: mind in game two on Wednesday night.
- 37:53Speaker 3: I was listening to conversations this morning about the Lakers
- 37:57Speaker 3: series and about the questions of whether a forty one
- 37:59Speaker 3: year old Lebron James can continue to do what he's
- 38:03Speaker 3: been doing, especially because Luca is not even a full
- 38:06Speaker 3: participant in practices yet. This Thunder team has been incredible. They're,
- 38:12Speaker 3: of course the defending champs. How do you handicap Thunder
- 38:16Speaker 3: versus La.
- 38:21Speaker 8: I like the Thunder in six games, but I like
- 38:23Speaker 8: Lebron all the time, says the question philosophically, do we
- 38:27Speaker 8: all think that lou Dort, Jalen Williams and Kendrick Williams
- 38:30Speaker 8: can slow down Lebron? And the answer is no, So
- 38:34Speaker 8: eventually they're going to play cruise so at six foot
- 38:38Speaker 8: six trying to get under Lebron's body to try to
- 38:42Speaker 8: slow him down. So Lebron has a great matchup in
- 38:45Speaker 8: this series, and so the question is again can he
- 38:49Speaker 8: help will his team to win by making place. I
- 38:52Speaker 8: see the big matchup's going to be DeAndre Ayton has
- 38:56Speaker 8: to outplay outfight Chet Hungerm and as Aya Hartstein. And
- 39:00Speaker 8: then the question also philosophically is can Marcus Smart have
- 39:04Speaker 8: enough tenacity and enough range of defensively to try to
- 39:10Speaker 8: attempt to slow down shape Jiles Alexander And so it's
- 39:14Speaker 8: really a fascinating matchup. I do think that Thunder are
- 39:16Speaker 8: going to win because they're so deep as far as
- 39:19Speaker 8: one to ten, But I like the Lakers battling. Let's
- 39:23Speaker 8: put his own context with Lebron. James who turns forty
- 39:26Speaker 8: two on the Stember thirtieth of this year. When Lebron
- 39:31Speaker 8: last time played against the Thunder in twenty and twelve,
- 39:35Speaker 8: which is now fourteen years ago, in the postseason, Bronnie
- 39:39Speaker 8: James was seven years old, Jared McCain of the Thunder
- 39:43Speaker 8: was eight years old, Chet Hunkering of the Thunder was
- 39:46Speaker 8: ten years old, and Shay Jills Alexander was thirteen years old.
- 39:50Speaker 8: That's how great Lebron is then and still now.
- 39:56Speaker 5: That's absolutely insane.
- 39:58Speaker 3: Who is the same Who's the second most important player
- 40:01Speaker 3: in this Lakers lineup until they get Luca back.
- 40:08Speaker 8: Lukenard got to make shots, but he needs help thout,
- 40:12Speaker 8: he needs a screen, and he needs spacing. So he's
- 40:15Speaker 8: got to get himself going.
- 40:17Speaker 5: Now.
- 40:17Speaker 8: Of course the flip side is going to be they're
- 40:19Speaker 8: going to try to not leave him, that they're gonna
- 40:22Speaker 8: leave him. So a lot of times when you're a
- 40:24Speaker 8: knockdown shooter like Kyle Korp former Jazz j Ingalls, especially
- 40:29Speaker 8: in playoff games where schematically the defense is absolutely there's
- 40:33Speaker 8: no excuse leaving a shooter right open for a corner
- 40:36Speaker 8: three hit. The game plan, what do you? What's the
- 40:40Speaker 8: problem You're leaving him? And so the players defensively know
- 40:45Speaker 8: that But with that said, you've got to move him
- 40:47Speaker 8: around set screens. Do you as the best way as
- 40:51Speaker 8: a great shooter to get free to be a screen
- 40:54Speaker 8: of yourself. I just describe Stephen Curry and a younger
- 40:57Speaker 8: version of Klay Thompson with the Warriors. So Cannard's got
- 41:02Speaker 8: to get himself going as far as moving around and
- 41:05Speaker 8: not let the thunder stationary guard him. So it's gonna
- 41:08Speaker 8: be fascinating. Can he do it? Will he do it?
- 41:10Speaker 8: And can his teammates find him in catch rhythm? The playoffs,
- 41:14Speaker 8: there's nothing like it showing it's it's so like intense
- 41:18Speaker 8: and it's a mental game and within the game, it's
- 41:21Speaker 8: another game going on the previous possessions. Most shooters in
- 41:26Speaker 8: playoff games have to shoot forward, not backwards. You miss
- 41:30Speaker 8: one or two shots, you've got yourself down before he said,
- 41:34Speaker 8: your feet ready to make the next shot because the
- 41:36Speaker 8: stakes are so high.
- 41:39Speaker 3: The Pistons had a scare in round one. They start
- 41:42Speaker 3: their series against the Cavaliers tonight, five o'clock on NBC.
- 41:49Speaker 3: Is it smoother this time for the Pistons or are
- 41:51Speaker 3: the Cavaliers a team that can take them out?
- 41:56Speaker 8: Take him out? Caw Bless could absolutely yes, very much.
- 42:00Speaker 8: Donvin Mitchell, former Jazz, tremendous player. In his nine year
- 42:04Speaker 8: Korea has never won a second round series. So Donovan
- 42:09Speaker 8: nine straight years in the playoffs and we all know
- 42:12Speaker 8: Donovan's game nine. So nine straight years, never gotten past
- 42:18Speaker 8: the second round. So in his world, he's going to
- 42:21Speaker 8: be in a strike mode, attack mode to try to
- 42:23Speaker 8: get himself going, but also his teammates going. The Pistons
- 42:27Speaker 8: are the defensive minded, physical team, now so are the Cavs.
- 42:33Speaker 8: So this is going to be a half court series basically,
- 42:37Speaker 8: So can James Harden and Donvin Mitchell Can they outplay
- 42:42Speaker 8: Kate Cunningham and Arson Thompson That's the first thing philosophically,
- 42:48Speaker 8: and Eric Mobley are jumping Jack. Can he slow down
- 42:51Speaker 8: Tobias Harris who had a great matchup in against Celtics,
- 42:54Speaker 8: and then Jaron Allen versus Jellen Duran Duran who's a
- 42:59Speaker 8: tremendous young and then Dennis Shrewd and all the other
- 43:02Speaker 8: guys off the bench for the Cavaliers and the Pistons.
- 43:05Speaker 8: So it's going to be a deep series. It's going
- 43:08Speaker 8: to go I think it's going to go very very long.
- 43:10Speaker 8: And I do like possibly the Cavs upsetting the first
- 43:16Speaker 8: seed the Detroit Pistons.
- 43:19Speaker 5: What's your list today, GORDI, by.
- 43:22Speaker 8: This today is the power of coaching. And before I forget,
- 43:25Speaker 8: is that you know about the G League? People was
- 43:28Speaker 8: talking about the G League et cetera. Is not important. Well,
- 43:32Speaker 8: I know I'm not objective because I worked for the
- 43:34Speaker 8: NBA one time as a a G League mentor as
- 43:36Speaker 8: far as coaching. So that said was that there's three
- 43:40Speaker 8: coaches in the final eight in the NBA that have
- 43:45Speaker 8: where were once head coaches in the G League. They
- 43:48Speaker 8: are Mark Daknot of the Thunder, Nick Nurse of the
- 43:52Speaker 8: seventy Sixes, and Chris Finch of the t Wolves. So
- 43:56Speaker 8: three to eight people who are in the final eight
- 43:59Speaker 8: in the NBA with G Lee coaches as head coaches,
- 44:03Speaker 8: And that just shows you the power of coaching. So
- 44:07Speaker 8: my list today is the most career wins by a
- 44:10Speaker 8: head coach in NBA Playoff history, the most wins as
- 44:14Speaker 8: a coach. His seven quick attributes as far as master
- 44:18Speaker 8: traits of elite coaches at any level one listening, two, communicating, three, teaching, four, organizing, five, delegating, six, inspiring,
- 44:33Speaker 8: and seven under pressure skills. So whether your coach in
- 44:38Speaker 8: junior high or a high school, college, or a big
- 44:41Speaker 8: bad NBA or the NFL, most coaches have mestered, if
- 44:45Speaker 8: not all, many of those traits. Here we go. Twelve
- 44:49Speaker 8: all time playoff victories are tie. George carl and Lenny
- 44:53Speaker 8: Wilkins with eighty playoff wins number eleven all time. Casey
- 44:59Speaker 8: Jones with eighty one, number ten all time. He coaches
- 45:03Speaker 8: the Pacers right now. Rick Carlo with eighty six, number
- 45:07Speaker 8: nine all time. My former colleague and friend, Jerry Sloan
- 45:12Speaker 8: is ninth all time coaching player victories with ninety eight,
- 45:18Speaker 8: eighth all time, Bred all Back with ninety nine seven
- 45:21Speaker 8: all time, Larry Brown with one hundred sixth all time.
- 45:26Speaker 8: He might retire, maybe not. Golden State Warriors Steve Kirk
- 45:30Speaker 8: with one hundred and four playoff victories number five all time.
- 45:35Speaker 8: Eric Spolstrom of Mammy Heat with one hundred and ten
- 45:39Speaker 8: number four, just recently retired. Doc Rivers fourth all time
- 45:44Speaker 8: with one hundred and fourteenth victories Number three. San Antonio
- 45:49Speaker 8: Spurs former head coach for twenty nine years, Gregg Popovich
- 45:54Speaker 8: with one hundred and seventy victories Number two still running
- 45:58Speaker 8: to Mammy Heat decades. Pat Rally's second all time with
- 46:03Speaker 8: one hundred and seventy one, and the number one head
- 46:06Speaker 8: coach in the NBA with the most ever postseason victories
- 46:09Speaker 8: is Phil Jackson with two hundred and twenty nine victories,
- 46:14Speaker 8: which comes to fifty winning percentage of postseason games. And
- 46:22Speaker 8: that just shows you that these people have longevity and
- 46:25Speaker 8: one of the master trades. All right, Oh see who
- 46:28Speaker 8: has in the NFL? Who has the most ever postseason
- 46:31Speaker 8: victories of playoff games in the NFL?
- 46:34Speaker 5: Right now?
- 46:35Speaker 8: It's Bill Belichick, that is correct, That's right, Belichick with
- 46:39Speaker 8: thirty one thirty one. Andy Reeves is second with twenty five.
- 46:44Speaker 3: So Andy Reid is he's got a real good chance
- 46:48Speaker 3: of passing up Belichick and being and being the guy
- 46:53Speaker 3: right now in the NBA, there's there's there's no one
- 46:55Speaker 3: really close to Phil Jackson who has the best chance
- 46:59Speaker 3: to pass it.
- 47:05Speaker 8: Nobody, Yeah, you know, really nobody. You have to coach
- 47:09Speaker 8: such a long time, that's the first thing. And also
- 47:13Speaker 8: that you have to have around you elite talent for decades,
- 47:19Speaker 8: and so Phil Jackson, you know, to his credit, but
- 47:21Speaker 8: also coaching elite talent is very difficult also because of
- 47:25Speaker 8: the personalities, and it just shows you that he's able
- 47:28Speaker 8: to with his own, you know, cult himself as far
- 47:32Speaker 8: as get these guys to play as unit literally majority
- 47:36Speaker 8: of the time. And it's hard to do. I mean,
- 47:39Speaker 8: coaching is I know I'm not objective because I'm a
- 47:42Speaker 8: former coach for thirty six years, but it's hard because
- 47:45Speaker 8: you're dealing with a lot of interesting personalities and that
- 47:49Speaker 8: everybody does want to win, but on their terms versus
- 47:53Speaker 8: what's best for our group. And the last point I
- 47:55Speaker 8: to say about this is that how can a star
- 47:57Speaker 8: player showcase the individual talent within the framework of a team.
- 48:03Speaker 8: That's the mission statement of a coach to allow that
- 48:05Speaker 8: star player to do it, and the coaches I mentioned
- 48:08Speaker 8: on this list, they messed that trait of doing it.
- 48:13Speaker 3: Gordy love catching up with you on All Things NBA.
- 48:17Speaker 3: We'll see you in studio on Thursday.
- 48:20Speaker 8: Thanks Sean peace out.
- 48:21Speaker 3: That's Gordy Chias, our resident NBA guru. Got to take
- 48:27Speaker 3: a quick one here when we come back. It's it's
- 48:29Speaker 3: way way too early right. Offseason lists and rankings don't
- 48:33Speaker 3: mean much, but if you're a Utah football fan be
- 48:37Speaker 3: prepared to get a little bit bothered by the latest
- 48:40Speaker 3: ESPN rankings. So Sean O'Connell show on ESPN seven.
- 48:49Speaker 9: Belong me day, and I can tell you belong with me.
- 49:01Speaker 1: You tune to the Shan o'connall Show for the Murdoch
- 49:04Speaker 1: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred at ninety two one.
- 49:08Speaker 9: A m.
- 49:12Speaker 3: God for that lunch here on the Shatocondall Show. If
- 49:15Speaker 3: you're watching on the YouTube, I've got a little treat
- 49:17Speaker 3: for you. Look at this big Willi's Burrito special today.
- 49:22Speaker 3: Patrick and Michelle owners, proprietors, brains and beauty behind the
- 49:27Speaker 3: operation are here in studio with us.
- 49:30Speaker 5: Hey, Patrick, how are you good? How are you doing better?
- 49:33Speaker 9: Now?
- 49:34Speaker 5: I know right it's a good hot lunch. Is that
- 49:36Speaker 5: pasole that is being opened right next to me right now,
- 49:38Speaker 5: freshly cooked yesterday?
- 49:40Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Happy Cinco de Mayo to you out
- 49:44Speaker 3: there listening to me here in the studio and to
- 49:47Speaker 3: anyone who is looking for a delicious Mexican food meal
- 49:52Speaker 3: seventeen seventeen, South Maine.
- 49:54Speaker 5: You guys went all out here.
- 49:55Speaker 3: I've got a burrito, a cup of pasole, soup, some
- 49:59Speaker 3: tortilla chips and street.
- 50:01Speaker 10: Tacos, street SOCOs, carne asadas, street tacos. Everything's made in house,
- 50:06Speaker 10: everything's fresh. Like I said, the pasoli has been cooking
- 50:10Speaker 10: for twenty four hours. Succulent, tender pork harmony. I mean,
- 50:16Speaker 10: what work can you ask for?
- 50:18Speaker 3: I could ask for about twenty minutes where nobody bothers me,
- 50:21Speaker 3: so I could actually eat all this stuff. But I'm
- 50:24Speaker 3: not gonna get that for a little while. So you
- 50:28Speaker 3: still got playoff hockey going on, playoff basketball going on,
- 50:32Speaker 3: regular season baseball going on. Unfortunately, our Mammoth are out,
- 50:36Speaker 3: but Big Willy's still running all these games.
- 50:39Speaker 10: Yeah, that run with the Mammoth. The vibe at the
- 50:43Speaker 10: bar was so insane we had the place was packed,
- 50:46Speaker 10: people were chanting. I mean it was like you're at
- 50:49Speaker 10: the game. So the vibe was super awesome. Like you said,
- 50:51Speaker 10: unfortunately their time has ended. But yeah, all the games
- 50:56Speaker 10: are going to be on. We broadcast all of them.
- 50:59Speaker 10: The sound will be on on great vibes. There is
- 51:02Speaker 10: a lot of Avalanche fans that have been coming in,
- 51:04Speaker 10: so that's a bonus.
- 51:06Speaker 3: Yeah, they've got a great I mean I think they're
- 51:08Speaker 3: gonna win the Cup this year.
- 51:09Speaker 5: Yeah, they look really good.
- 51:12Speaker 3: I can't decide how I want to deal with the
- 51:14Speaker 3: Las Vegas Golden Knights right now, because when you lose
- 51:18Speaker 3: to somebody, it makes you look better if they end up,
- 51:21Speaker 3: you know, like, oh, it's not so bad if you
- 51:23Speaker 3: lost to the eventual champions. So I think that's like
- 51:26Speaker 3: the rivalry is developing. It's not like you could never
- 51:29Speaker 3: root for BYU if you're a Utah fan. But I
- 51:31Speaker 3: think it's gonna get there. I don't know if we're
- 51:33Speaker 3: there yet, So I can't decide how if I want
- 51:35Speaker 3: to like wish the Knights well or if I'm like,
- 51:39Speaker 3: screw those guys.
- 51:39Speaker 5: They beat us.
- 51:40Speaker 10: You think they're gonna be more of a rival than
- 51:43Speaker 10: they Avalanche, Yeah, I do.
- 51:45Speaker 5: Yeah, I get that.
- 51:46Speaker 3: They're closer like people everyone in Salt Lake goes to
- 51:51Speaker 3: Vegas all the time for something, right, not true with Denver.
- 51:56Speaker 5: Now we are the much much cooler mountain city.
- 51:59Speaker 3: Like when people who have not been to either Denver
- 52:02Speaker 3: or Salt Lake from around the country, the mental picture
- 52:06Speaker 3: of Denver in their mind is actually.
- 52:08Speaker 5: Salt Lake City.
- 52:09Speaker 3: They think it's like this cool place that is tucked
- 52:11Speaker 3: up right against the mountains and then they fly there
- 52:14Speaker 3: and they're just like, the mountains are two hours away
- 52:16Speaker 3: from here, not a half hour. Yeah, we're right here, right.
- 52:20Speaker 3: So I mean, for that reason, I think that Denver
- 52:23Speaker 3: can be a rival. But I think I think Vegas,
- 52:25Speaker 3: especially because your first playoff series was against them, you
- 52:28Speaker 3: got some big wins.
- 52:29Speaker 5: You get I don't know that really really chippy, so hard.
- 52:33Speaker 10: And it's hard to watch the games because every time
- 52:34Speaker 10: they talk about a player, they're like, oh, so and
- 52:36Speaker 10: so scored three overtime goals against the Mammoth and you're
- 52:38Speaker 10: just like, all right, switching this.
- 52:41Speaker 4: I don't want to hear about it. Shut up. Yeah, So,
- 52:46Speaker 4: I don't know.
- 52:47Speaker 3: Maybe you can help me decide how if I'm I'm
- 52:49Speaker 3: gonna hate on them already or I'm gonna wait until
- 52:51Speaker 3: next year to really hate.
- 52:52Speaker 5: I think we start the hate, all right, let's go,
- 52:53Speaker 5: let's do it.
- 52:55Speaker 8: Uh.
- 52:55Speaker 3: That means that if you wear a Vegas Golden Night
- 52:58Speaker 3: sweater into Big Willies, you'll still get great service, you
- 53:01Speaker 3: still get great drinks and great food.
- 53:04Speaker 5: You have to sit in the corner. You gotta sit
- 53:06Speaker 5: in the corner by yourself.
- 53:08Speaker 3: And if you go to the pool hall, your opponent
- 53:10Speaker 3: automatically gets one extra ball.
- 53:12Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll put them in the penalty box. Perfect. Okay,
- 53:17Speaker 5: it's Tuesday night. What do you have going on at
- 53:19Speaker 5: Big Willies tonight?
- 53:21Speaker 10: Tonight we have bingo jackpot still at two thousand dollars.
- 53:25Speaker 10: It's free to play. Get there early because it does
- 53:29Speaker 10: fill up pretty fast. You know, people sit outside. It's
- 53:33Speaker 10: a little chillier today, but the mic goes in all places,
- 53:37Speaker 10: so we have a lot of tables and space for
- 53:39Speaker 10: everybody to enjoy that.
- 53:41Speaker 5: But yeah, it's it's up to two k. Let's go.
- 53:45Speaker 5: It's fun.
- 53:46Speaker 3: You had poker on Sunday, you got bingo, you got trivia,
- 53:50Speaker 3: and of course all the game's still going on. Big
- 53:52Speaker 3: Willies has something good for you all year long. Get
- 53:56Speaker 3: there and when you go tell themose he sent you,
- 53:58Speaker 3: and they'll give you an extra special smile out.
- 54:00Speaker 10: At the bar and a high five, oh wow, and
- 54:03Speaker 10: a good game, whichever you prefer.
- 54:05Speaker 3: Okay, I know what you mean by that, anything special.
- 54:11Speaker 3: Besides the great menu for Sinco de Mayo.
- 54:14Speaker 10: We have amazing tequilas. None of them are overly expensive.
- 54:20Speaker 10: Even the expensive ones are cheap, So come down enjoy
- 54:23Speaker 10: some fancy tequilas for reasonable prices, and we have some
- 54:30Speaker 10: Mexican beers on Option two Pacifico Coronas. Everything you need
- 54:34Speaker 10: to make your sink of to Mayo dreams come true.
- 54:38Speaker 3: Big Willies is the perfect place to celebrate. And even
- 54:41Speaker 3: if you didn't plan on celebrating, now I've given you
- 54:44Speaker 3: some plants. Go down there, watch a little hockey play
- 54:46Speaker 3: little Bingo Babe, little basketball on the other big screen.
- 54:50Speaker 3: Have some incredible food and hang out with Patrick Michelle
- 54:53Speaker 3: and the crew down there at Big Willie's seventeen seventeen
- 54:57Speaker 3: South Main the Hot Lunch Special and a great.
- 55:01Speaker 5: Night on deck for you at Big Willies.
- 55:05Speaker 3: All right, we're gonna talk a little bit more hockey.
- 55:08Speaker 3: Brogan Houston is gonna join us. I promise we are
- 55:10Speaker 3: gonna get to that list with Utah's ranking in the
- 55:14Speaker 3: early preseason offseason Big twelve standings. You are gonna hate
- 55:18Speaker 3: what ESPN thinks about your utes right now, we'll get there.
- 55:22Speaker 3: On the Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven hundred ninety one FM.
- 55:29Speaker 1: You were listening to The Sean O'Connell Show from the
- 55:32Speaker 1: Murdoch Hundi studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
- 55:37Speaker 1: to one, a f.
- 55:37Speaker 2: M oh happy singing to Mile here on the Sean
- 55:49Speaker 2: O'Connell Show.
- 55:50Speaker 4: What a selection of grub from Big Willies.
- 55:53Speaker 3: James, Once you get me set up here with Brogan Houston,
- 55:56Speaker 3: you got to come in and grab this giant plate
- 55:58Speaker 3: of food that Patrick and ms left behind for us.
- 56:01Speaker 3: We've also got a taco party going on in the
- 56:04Speaker 3: cantena out here at the radio station, so by the
- 56:09Speaker 3: end of the day we're gonna be all tacoed out.
- 56:12Speaker 3: Big thanks to Gordy Chiesa who joined us, Big thanks
- 56:15Speaker 3: to Patrick and Michelle from Big Willies who brought in
- 56:17Speaker 3: the food for the hot lunch, and a preemptive big
- 56:21Speaker 3: thanks to our next guest, Brogan Houston, Utah Mammoth Insider
- 56:24Speaker 3: stops by to talk about the end of this season,
- 56:28Speaker 3: what's coming for this franchise, and of course, the remaining
- 56:31Speaker 3: teams in the NHL playoffs.
- 56:33Speaker 5: Brogan Houston, Welcome back to the show.
- 56:35Speaker 4: How are you.
- 56:36Speaker 9: I'm doing well. I'm a little hungry. I wish we
- 56:38Speaker 9: would have done this in person today.
- 56:39Speaker 3: You know what, We'll save some for you. They brought
- 56:42Speaker 3: so much down we'll just walk on.
- 56:45Speaker 5: In and you're invited.
- 56:48Speaker 9: Sound good.
- 56:50Speaker 3: So we've got some more exit interviews we'll hear from
- 56:53Speaker 3: the big bosses and such today. But your your overarching
- 56:57Speaker 3: thoughts on the end of that series with the Las
- 57:01Speaker 3: Vegas Golden Knights and the way this team should be
- 57:05Speaker 3: processing their performance in the series.
- 57:08Speaker 9: Yeah, Well, we talked to every player on Sunday and
- 57:11Speaker 9: it kind of seems like everybody had the right mindset
- 57:14Speaker 9: of this, this kind of like, oh, yes, this was
- 57:17Speaker 9: the goal that we had set out to accomplish, that
- 57:20Speaker 9: we make the playoffs and see what happens from there,
- 57:23Speaker 9: but combined with the right amount of regret of like
- 57:26Speaker 9: oh wow, like there were just these couple of things
- 57:28Speaker 9: that we could have done better to make it onto
- 57:30Speaker 9: the next round. And so it's it's kind of that
- 57:33Speaker 9: mix of like success and regret at the same time,
- 57:36Speaker 9: which is I think exactly where you want to be
- 57:38Speaker 9: because you know, under Attorney in his press conference after
- 57:42Speaker 9: Game six, he said, like it has to hurt, right, Like,
- 57:45Speaker 9: you don't learn from it unless it hurts, And it
- 57:47Speaker 9: was clear during exit interviews that it hurts. But that
- 57:51Speaker 9: also doesn't stop them from you know, believing that they
- 57:54Speaker 9: that they were in the spot that they were supposed
- 57:57Speaker 9: to be in and that they had set up to
- 58:00Speaker 9: you know, called the goal that they had set up
- 58:01Speaker 9: to accomplish at the beginning of the year.
- 58:04Speaker 3: I mean, I think that especially holding leads, and then
- 58:08Speaker 3: the bright side is you held leads in those games,
- 58:10Speaker 3: and then the downside, the more significant takeaways probably that
- 58:13Speaker 3: you blew those leads. Third period leads are supposed to
- 58:17Speaker 3: be handled by pushing through and maintaining and winning the game.
- 58:21Speaker 3: And what was, in your opinion, what was the biggest
- 58:25Speaker 3: misstep or the issue or issues that caused this team
- 58:30Speaker 3: to be oh so close and yet not being able
- 58:32Speaker 3: to close those out.
- 58:34Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 58:35Speaker 9: I think it was a combination of two things. One
- 58:38Speaker 9: is that Vegas is the best third period team in
- 58:41Speaker 9: the lead this year, so that's part of it. Like
- 58:45Speaker 9: a lot of teams have given up third period leads
- 58:48Speaker 9: to the Vegas Golden Nights this year. But you know,
- 58:51Speaker 9: obviously then state it three times that they were leading
- 58:53Speaker 9: in the third period and lost the game. So there's
- 58:56Speaker 9: something that you know, you have to adjust and fix.
- 58:59Speaker 9: And I think I think the thing that the Manith
- 59:02Speaker 9: struggled with in this series was they'd get a lead,
- 59:05Speaker 9: and then they would defend as if they're on the
- 59:07Speaker 9: penalty kill. So what I mean by that is that,
- 59:11Speaker 9: you know, you get the puck and rather than skating
- 59:14Speaker 9: it down and trying to hold it in the other
- 59:15Speaker 9: team zone and score another goal or what have you,
- 59:19Speaker 9: they would get the puck and they just ice it
- 59:22Speaker 9: or they just you know, get to the red line
- 59:24Speaker 9: and dump it in and change and let the let
- 59:27Speaker 9: the next group come and defend. And that works for
- 59:33Speaker 9: maybe a few plays in a row, but it's not
- 59:35Speaker 9: going to work for a fifteen minute block of time
- 59:38Speaker 9: that you have to kill off the block. Like if
- 59:40Speaker 9: you're just letting the other team have speed through the
- 59:42Speaker 9: neutral zone, they're going to burn you every time. Then
- 59:44Speaker 9: they did burn them every time on those and so,
- 59:49Speaker 9: you know, I just kind of think it was a
- 59:50Speaker 9: lapse in system in this playoff series as well as
- 59:55Speaker 9: just you know, you're facing a really good team that
- 59:57Speaker 9: can really do good things, especially in this thro period.
- 1:00:02Speaker 3: Who was the Mammoth MVP this season? There was you know,
- 1:00:05Speaker 3: Cooley was injured for an amount of time. Keller had
- 1:00:09Speaker 3: he led the team in points, and obviously he overcame
- 1:00:12Speaker 3: a lot personally, but who who's the team MVP if
- 1:00:17Speaker 3: you take the whole thing playoffs, regular season, et cetera
- 1:00:20Speaker 3: into consideration.
- 1:00:23Speaker 9: That's a really good question. I'm kind of split between
- 1:00:27Speaker 9: Dylan Gunther and Nick schmall and I'll give a case
- 1:00:31Speaker 9: for each one.
- 1:00:32Speaker 5: Nice.
- 1:00:32Speaker 9: So, Dylan Gunter obviously scored forty goals this year. Not
- 1:00:35Speaker 9: every team has a forty goal scorer, Like, that's a
- 1:00:37Speaker 9: lot of goals. He's also only what twenty three to
- 1:00:39Speaker 9: twenty four years old right around there, so he still
- 1:00:42Speaker 9: got lost and loss left to learn and grow and
- 1:00:45Speaker 9: get better. So you know, it's it's not unlikely that
- 1:00:49Speaker 9: we see a fifty or sixty goal season from him eventually,
- 1:00:51Speaker 9: and I think he had the capability to do that,
- 1:00:54Speaker 9: and those those forty goals, a lot of them came
- 1:00:57Speaker 9: in really big moments. And if you don't have Dylan
- 1:00:59Speaker 9: gun theer, I don't think he makes the playoffs this year. Now,
- 1:01:02Speaker 9: my case for Nick Schmaltz is, you know, like you mentioned,
- 1:01:06Speaker 9: Logan Cooley goes down and Barrett Hayton also was you know,
- 1:01:10Speaker 9: out of the lineup at one point this season as well.
- 1:01:13Speaker 9: Those are the two top centers from last year and
- 1:01:17Speaker 9: and all of a sudden Utah kind of needed somebody
- 1:01:19Speaker 9: to step up and fill the first line center role.
- 1:01:22Speaker 9: And that's exactly what Nick Schmaltz did. Like in the NHL,
- 1:01:25Speaker 9: to this point, Nick Schmaltz had barely played center. He
- 1:01:27Speaker 9: had always been a winger. And for those who might
- 1:01:29Speaker 9: not know, enner is a much more difficult position to
- 1:01:33Speaker 9: play than wing, Like you have way more defensive responsibility.
- 1:01:36Speaker 9: You're taking face off, you're doing all these all these
- 1:01:39Speaker 9: extra things. Plus you're you're playing a two hundred foot
- 1:01:42Speaker 9: game rather than you know, like you're you're playing from
- 1:01:45Speaker 9: one end of the boards to the other end of
- 1:01:46Speaker 9: the boards rather than just kind of your little section
- 1:01:49Speaker 9: of the ice that the wingers play. So a bigger responsibility,
- 1:01:52Speaker 9: and Nick Schmaltz knocked it out of the park. Like
- 1:01:54Speaker 9: he you know, he looked like he was always the center,
- 1:01:59Speaker 9: and he broke career highs, you know as a center,
- 1:02:02Speaker 9: like he broke you know, all of his career hiding
- 1:02:06Speaker 9: goals and points and stuff. And then just the fact
- 1:02:09Speaker 9: that you know he was also on the ice defensively
- 1:02:12Speaker 9: in every defensive situation, like he kills penalties, you know,
- 1:02:16Speaker 9: he is he's on the ice when they are trying
- 1:02:18Speaker 9: to defend the lead all that kind of stuff, and
- 1:02:21Speaker 9: so I think, you know, like I said with Gunser,
- 1:02:23Speaker 9: I don't think that you make the playoffs if Nick
- 1:02:25Speaker 9: sch Moltz in Ntinia lineups. And for that reason, I
- 1:02:28Speaker 9: even put him on my Selkie ballot this year, which
- 1:02:30Speaker 9: is for the two way forward of the year, because
- 1:02:33Speaker 9: I just think he really deserves that. He's he's a
- 1:02:36Speaker 9: threat at both ends of the ECE.
- 1:02:38Speaker 5: I loved his season.
- 1:02:40Speaker 3: I echo everything that you just said, and you would
- 1:02:43Speaker 3: say a lot better than I. But also it felt
- 1:02:46Speaker 3: like he was there were certain games like he was
- 1:02:49Speaker 3: timely with his best games in a lot of times.
- 1:02:52Speaker 3: And whether that carried over to the playoffs, I guess
- 1:02:54Speaker 3: can be debated. But you know, there was plenty of
- 1:02:58Speaker 3: regular season matchups, especially as you're coming down to the
- 1:03:01Speaker 3: down the stretch in the final twenty games or so,
- 1:03:03Speaker 3: and you gotta, you know, you got to make sure
- 1:03:06Speaker 3: that you're staying above certain teams or that you're chasing,
- 1:03:08Speaker 3: you know, the right spot in those standings and in
- 1:03:11Speaker 3: the wild card, and it felt like he was really
- 1:03:13Speaker 3: stepping up and he would have a big game in
- 1:03:15Speaker 3: those moments or if Keller was being quiet, or if
- 1:03:18Speaker 3: Kooley was out, or if Gunther wasn't having a goal
- 1:03:22Speaker 3: scoring game, all of a sudden, it'd be Schmaltz that
- 1:03:24Speaker 3: kind of stepped into that role.
- 1:03:25Speaker 5: And I think that's just such an important thing for a.
- 1:03:27Speaker 3: Team to have, because you're always going to have your
- 1:03:30Speaker 3: top line stars, the guys that you know everyone in
- 1:03:33Speaker 3: the arena is wearing their sweater and those guys. Mammoth
- 1:03:36Speaker 3: have those guys, and it's nice to see them. But
- 1:03:39Speaker 3: Schmaltz felt like he was the glue and the bridge
- 1:03:42Speaker 3: between when those guys were having great nights or were
- 1:03:45Speaker 3: feeling all the way healthy and when they weren't.
- 1:03:47Speaker 5: Does that make.
- 1:03:47Speaker 9: Sense, Yeah, yeah, And I'd even extend it to the
- 1:03:51Speaker 9: first line in the second line, And in this case,
- 1:03:54Speaker 9: I'm referring to the first line as Smallt, Keller and
- 1:03:56Speaker 9: Crouds and second line as Kooley Gunter and at this
- 1:03:58Speaker 9: point yet on the motto that when the first line
- 1:04:02Speaker 9: was not scoring, the second line was, and when the
- 1:04:05Speaker 9: second line was not scoring, the first line was, and
- 1:04:08Speaker 9: so they always had one line that was very productive
- 1:04:11Speaker 9: and for that reason they were very rarely out of games.
- 1:04:13Speaker 9: And then every now and then they'd have both lines
- 1:04:15Speaker 9: scoring at the same time, and they'd put up seven
- 1:04:17Speaker 9: goals on an opponent and you know, not even have
- 1:04:20Speaker 9: a chance of losing the game. And you know, obviously
- 1:04:22Speaker 9: that's what you really want, is for both lines to
- 1:04:24Speaker 9: be firing. But when you can have at least one
- 1:04:27Speaker 9: of those doing, you know, like scoring two or three
- 1:04:29Speaker 9: goals a game like that, that's, you know, a really
- 1:04:32Speaker 9: good recipe for success.
- 1:04:34Speaker 3: It seemed like in the series against the Knights, the
- 1:04:37Speaker 3: penalty kill got itself figured out and stepped up big
- 1:04:40Speaker 3: in a lot of moments, and then the power play
- 1:04:43Speaker 3: became a weakness and even gave up short handed goals.
- 1:04:46Speaker 3: What happened to that particular specialty. What happened to the
- 1:04:50Speaker 3: power play in the playoff series against the Knights?
- 1:04:53Speaker 9: Yeah, I really think it was a case of really
- 1:04:56Speaker 9: good game planning by Vegas's coaching staff. You know, they
- 1:05:01Speaker 9: recognize that. Like I said, Dylan Gunter and Nick Maltz,
- 1:05:05Speaker 9: thet'll be the theme of this interview. I guess that
- 1:05:07Speaker 9: those two guys scored just about fifty percent of Utah's
- 1:05:11Speaker 9: power play goals this year, just between the two of them,
- 1:05:14Speaker 9: and so they made sure that they covered number eight
- 1:05:18Speaker 9: and number eleven, and then everybody else was kind of
- 1:05:20Speaker 9: just there. But because everybody's just looking for Schmalt and
- 1:05:24Speaker 9: gun the you know, they had no option to pass to.
- 1:05:29Speaker 9: And you saw every time, you know, after the first
- 1:05:32Speaker 9: couple of games when Gumster burned them a couple of times,
- 1:05:34Speaker 9: this is one timer. After that, they just kind of realized, like, oh,
- 1:05:38Speaker 9: we cannot leave that guy open on the left wing
- 1:05:41Speaker 9: circle there, and so every time that he'd go to
- 1:05:43Speaker 9: take a shot, there was somebody there to block it.
- 1:05:45Speaker 9: And I don't know how many one timers he had blocked,
- 1:05:47Speaker 9: but it was a bunch. And then Nick Schmalt's same thing.
- 1:05:50Speaker 9: He stands right in the slot, like maybe four or
- 1:05:52Speaker 9: five feet in front of the goalie, and he stands
- 1:05:56Speaker 9: there and kind of screens the goalie, kind of tries
- 1:05:58Speaker 9: to tip pots. He you know, we'll get passes in
- 1:06:02Speaker 9: the slot, and then just fire him straight in. And
- 1:06:04Speaker 9: he did that all regular season long, and he hardly
- 1:06:06Speaker 9: had a chance to do that during the playoffs. And
- 1:06:09Speaker 9: I think that was just because you know, the Golden
- 1:06:11Speaker 9: Knights recognized, okay, well, their power player operates through these
- 1:06:15Speaker 9: two guys. So if we always have a man glued
- 1:06:18Speaker 9: to each one of those guys, they're not going to
- 1:06:20Speaker 9: be able to be as effective. And it worked. They
- 1:06:23Speaker 9: scored one power play goal I believe it was in
- 1:06:25Speaker 9: the first or second game one of those games, and
- 1:06:29Speaker 9: after that they just didn't score a single one. I
- 1:06:32Speaker 9: believe they were one for sixteen in the playoffs, maybe
- 1:06:35Speaker 9: one for fifteen something like that. But you know, that's
- 1:06:38Speaker 9: that's really not a good number. Like a good number
- 1:06:41Speaker 9: is like twenty to thirty percent kind of thing, and
- 1:06:43Speaker 9: they were at about seven percent something like that. So
- 1:06:46Speaker 9: you know, that's that's one of the things that you
- 1:06:48Speaker 9: can point to and say, hey, if they had been
- 1:06:50Speaker 9: a little bit better in this area, maybe they would
- 1:06:52Speaker 9: have won the series.
- 1:06:54Speaker 3: Rogan Houston is our guest here on the shuttle'connle shall
- 1:06:57Speaker 3: talk and Utah Mammoth post mortem after their season. He is,
- 1:07:00Speaker 3: of course Mammoth insider over there for the Deserets Deseret Sports.
- 1:07:08Speaker 4: There were a lot of.
- 1:07:08Speaker 3: Guys that the Mammoth kind of extended in these last
- 1:07:12Speaker 3: two seasons to lock up their core in the relative
- 1:07:16Speaker 3: long term, and it feels like all of those guys
- 1:07:20Speaker 3: are happy to be here excited to be here. Heading
- 1:07:23Speaker 3: into this offseason, there's you know, questions about a couple
- 1:07:26Speaker 3: of folks, and in the exit interviews what I've been
- 1:07:30Speaker 3: able to listen to so far, it seems like everybody
- 1:07:33Speaker 3: wants to be here. And I know that, you know,
- 1:07:35Speaker 3: you express gratitude for the situation that you're in, but
- 1:07:39Speaker 3: it seems like there's an authentic desire for these players
- 1:07:42Speaker 3: to try to keep as much of this group together
- 1:07:44Speaker 3: as they can and to be part of this growth
- 1:07:47Speaker 3: moving forward for in my opinion, obvious reasons. Because they see, like,
- 1:07:51Speaker 3: all right, second year here in Utah, we made the
- 1:07:54Speaker 3: playoffs this year. Next year we can maybe win a
- 1:07:57Speaker 3: series or two. So with the guys whose futures are
- 1:08:00Speaker 3: kind of hanging up or or or hanging in the air,
- 1:08:03Speaker 3: who is the priority? What does this Utah mammoth uh
- 1:08:07Speaker 3: general management and ownership need to do to improve this
- 1:08:11Speaker 3: team but also to keep some consistency.
- 1:08:15Speaker 9: Yeah, well, I think the priority has already been accomplished,
- 1:08:20Speaker 9: if if I can answer it that way, just that,
- 1:08:23Speaker 9: I mean, Logan Cooley is on a new contract next
- 1:08:26Speaker 9: summer or next next season, so is Nix Months and
- 1:08:30Speaker 9: and those two guys like going into the season, you know,
- 1:08:33Speaker 9: it was it was no guarantee that they would sign
- 1:08:35Speaker 9: long term extensions, and and they got them done already.
- 1:08:39Speaker 9: And so in that sense, like you know, you will
- 1:08:43Speaker 9: you will not lose Nick months in the summer. You
- 1:08:45Speaker 9: will not have an offer sheet given to Logan Cooley
- 1:08:49Speaker 9: this summer. And so I think in that sense, yeah,
- 1:08:52Speaker 9: they've already They've already accomplished the big goal. So now
- 1:08:55Speaker 9: the players that are remaining that they need to sign
- 1:08:58Speaker 9: are I mean, I Pole, Alexander Kurfut, Barret Hayton is
- 1:09:02Speaker 9: a restricted free agent. So you know, you've got a
- 1:09:04Speaker 9: little bit more leverage there as a team. V Tech Vanachek,
- 1:09:08Speaker 9: Nick de Simone. You know, these are all kind of
- 1:09:12Speaker 9: depth players rather than your your key, you know, core
- 1:09:16Speaker 9: players that are scoring every night for you. And so
- 1:09:19Speaker 9: in that sense, like you know, they may or may
- 1:09:21Speaker 9: not choose to bring back some of those guys or
- 1:09:24Speaker 9: all of those guys, like you know, they they could
- 1:09:26Speaker 9: let all of them walk and just kind of find
- 1:09:28Speaker 9: replacement players in free agency that will do more or
- 1:09:32Speaker 9: less the same thing those guys do. Not to say
- 1:09:35Speaker 9: that any of them are less important than you know,
- 1:09:38Speaker 9: those those players that they could replace him with. But
- 1:09:40Speaker 9: just that you know, those are those are death roles
- 1:09:43Speaker 9: that a lot of guys can fail, and so we'll
- 1:09:46Speaker 9: see what they do. I wouldn't be surprised to see
- 1:09:48Speaker 9: any of those guys come back, but I don't think
- 1:09:51Speaker 9: it's a dire need necessarily for them. Like I don't
- 1:09:56Speaker 9: think they'll fail in the offseason if they if they
- 1:09:59Speaker 9: don't bring back in goal or if they don't bring
- 1:10:01Speaker 9: back Alexander Kurt But like, if if those guys are out,
- 1:10:03Speaker 9: then somebody else can step into those spots and probably
- 1:10:06Speaker 9: do a similar job.
- 1:10:08Speaker 3: You mentioned v Tech Banacheck, and he just he just
- 1:10:10Speaker 3: wasn't very good in a backup goaltender role, and I
- 1:10:14Speaker 3: think Vetchy excuse me, probably played maybe just to touch
- 1:10:18Speaker 3: more than would be ideal in that situation. So is
- 1:10:23Speaker 3: that a place that this team will potentially make a
- 1:10:26Speaker 3: change their second goaltender.
- 1:10:28Speaker 9: I would have to think so. But also I was
- 1:10:32Speaker 9: just looking at the market of unrestricted free agents in
- 1:10:36Speaker 9: goaltending this year, and there's not a ton out there
- 1:10:39Speaker 9: that you can go and get. And so maybe you
- 1:10:42Speaker 9: do bring back Banichick because he's probably honestly one of
- 1:10:45Speaker 9: the best options on the free agency market, but like
- 1:10:48Speaker 9: you said, it just didn't work out here for whatever reason.
- 1:10:52Speaker 9: You know, he a backup goal usually played a lot
- 1:10:55Speaker 9: more games than he did, and I don't think that
- 1:10:58Speaker 9: like based on how he played, I don't think they
- 1:11:00Speaker 9: out they could rely on him in big games to
- 1:11:03Speaker 9: get big wins for them. Lots of the games that
- 1:11:06Speaker 9: they played him like they were kind of these giveaway
- 1:11:08Speaker 9: games of like, oh, we're not going to beat that
- 1:11:10Speaker 9: team anyway, or or oh it's a back to back,
- 1:11:12Speaker 9: let's let's, you know, give him the team that we
- 1:11:15Speaker 9: don't think we're going to beat so that we can
- 1:11:17Speaker 9: make sure that we get the game that we can win.
- 1:11:21Speaker 9: And so I think in that regard, you know, you
- 1:11:24Speaker 9: you don't necessarily want to bring that back that specific player,
- 1:11:28Speaker 9: but who out there is going to be a better option.
- 1:11:31Speaker 9: And that's kind of the question that I have. You know,
- 1:11:33Speaker 9: maybe it's a trade, maybe it's a free agent signing,
- 1:11:35Speaker 9: but you know, you've got to think that they would
- 1:11:39Speaker 9: at least try to figure something out.
- 1:11:43Speaker 4: Is Bear Turney safe?
- 1:11:46Speaker 9: I think so, you know, that might be a question
- 1:11:49Speaker 9: that comes up that at IXAID interviews today. We've got
- 1:11:52Speaker 9: we've got Turney as well as Bill and Chris arm Trungbull,
- 1:11:55Speaker 9: So we'll see if they say anything on that. That's
- 1:11:58Speaker 9: the report earlier in the season was that at one
- 1:12:03Speaker 9: point the Mammoths were quite close to replacing Attorney in
- 1:12:08Speaker 9: the coaching position and that Pete de Bora was going
- 1:12:11Speaker 9: to be the guy that came in. I don't know
- 1:12:13Speaker 9: how close that got, but that was a report for
- 1:12:15Speaker 9: Elliott Friedman, who is like the insider of all insiders
- 1:12:19Speaker 9: in the hockey world. He's he never is wrong, basically,
- 1:12:23Speaker 9: so I do believe that, you know, what he says
- 1:12:25Speaker 9: is probably true and and at some point in this
- 1:12:29Speaker 9: season that was probably what was about to happen. And
- 1:12:32Speaker 9: then you know, the Mammoths kind of turned it around
- 1:12:34Speaker 9: and obviously got to the playoffs. And so, you know,
- 1:12:37Speaker 9: the the battle in my head with this one is, Okay, well,
- 1:12:41Speaker 9: you know, he's the coach that got you there, so
- 1:12:43Speaker 9: you give him a little bit of run right right,
- 1:12:45Speaker 9: Like you say, oh, you got us here, Let's see
- 1:12:47Speaker 9: how far into the playoffs now you can get us.
- 1:12:50Speaker 9: The other half of that is all of his winning
- 1:12:52Speaker 9: that he's ever done is in international tournaments, which are
- 1:12:56Speaker 9: always you know, ten games or last kind of thing.
- 1:13:00Speaker 9: So he's never really had like a full, a full
- 1:13:03Speaker 9: playoff experience that he's won, even in the junior leagues
- 1:13:06Speaker 9: that he coached in before this, like he had a
- 1:13:09Speaker 9: few playoff runds, but he never won any championships. And
- 1:13:12Speaker 9: I think it was fourteen years in the in the
- 1:13:14Speaker 9: junior leagues, never won a championship. And so we'll see
- 1:13:18Speaker 9: if he's the coach that can get you over the
- 1:13:20Speaker 9: hump or if he's just kind of this development coach
- 1:13:22Speaker 9: that you know, helps you out through the rebuild and
- 1:13:24Speaker 9: then you go and get somebody else. I believe he
- 1:13:27Speaker 9: still has one more year on his contract, so maybe
- 1:13:29Speaker 9: that factors into it as well. And I certainly wouldn't
- 1:13:33Speaker 9: be surprised to see him back. I think he's done
- 1:13:34Speaker 9: a great job. But you know, we'll have to see,
- 1:13:38Speaker 9: Like there's just so many factors that play into.
- 1:13:40Speaker 3: It as we head into an offseason now, and the
- 1:13:46Speaker 3: draft lottery is.
- 1:13:47Speaker 5: That tonight, yes to night. Yeah.
- 1:13:51Speaker 3: So by the way, man don't have draft lottery odds,
- 1:13:54Speaker 3: but they do have some capital. They could potentially move
- 1:13:58Speaker 3: up into a situation where they you know, they find
- 1:14:02Speaker 3: a partner who works out well in the draft lottery,
- 1:14:05Speaker 3: and they've got a nice little pipeline. We've talked about
- 1:14:07Speaker 3: some of these players, the Agintla's and the Dano Yets,
- 1:14:11Speaker 3: and some of those individuals Simashevin boot were both given a,
- 1:14:15Speaker 3: you know a little bit of a run with the
- 1:14:16Speaker 3: big club this year. Any of those young guys you
- 1:14:20Speaker 3: think become a staple on the Mammoth roster for next season.
- 1:14:25Speaker 9: I think the closest one is definitely Dimitri Simachev. He
- 1:14:28Speaker 9: played maybe thirty games this year roughly still played you know,
- 1:14:32Speaker 9: obviously limited minutes and everything, but he played well in
- 1:14:36Speaker 9: those games that he did play. Now he is still
- 1:14:39Speaker 9: trying to find his game offensively in the NHL. And
- 1:14:42Speaker 9: when he was playing in the minors this year, he
- 1:14:44Speaker 9: did have good offense, so he is capable of it.
- 1:14:48Speaker 9: But you know, if he wants to be a number
- 1:14:50Speaker 9: one or a number two defenseman in the NHL, like you,
- 1:14:53Speaker 9: you simply don't play that role if you if you
- 1:14:55Speaker 9: can't score kind of fifty to sixty points per season
- 1:14:58Speaker 9: at a minimum. And so we'll see if he can
- 1:15:01Speaker 9: add that aspect to his game at the NHL level.
- 1:15:04Speaker 9: But again, he's young. I think he's twenty eight years
- 1:15:06Speaker 9: old right now, so maybe twenty one, so you know,
- 1:15:09Speaker 9: he's still got a lot of time to figure that
- 1:15:11Speaker 9: part of it out. But I do think he deserves
- 1:15:14Speaker 9: to be in the NHL, probably next season, and I
- 1:15:18Speaker 9: think he has value that he can provide. I think
- 1:15:20Speaker 9: Daniel boot could get there as well, but I wouldn't
- 1:15:23Speaker 9: be surprised to see him play, you know, maybe fifty
- 1:15:27Speaker 9: games here and thirty games in the AHL something like that. Like,
- 1:15:30Speaker 9: I still don't think he's quite a full time NHL player,
- 1:15:33Speaker 9: but he still is showing good potential to get there.
- 1:15:36Speaker 9: And then in terms of all the players that are
- 1:15:38Speaker 9: playing in the Canadian Hockey League right now, that's Tiji
- 1:15:41Speaker 9: Gemla and Caleb dano A and Cole Baldwin. The three
- 1:15:45Speaker 9: of them are all eligible to go to the American
- 1:15:48Speaker 9: Hockey League next year, and I think that they'll probably
- 1:15:51Speaker 9: go there just based off of how they all dominated
- 1:15:54Speaker 9: this year in their respective Canadian Hockey League leagues. But
- 1:16:00Speaker 9: you know, we'll see. And those guys all have the
- 1:16:02Speaker 9: potential to play in the Memorial Cup this year as well,
- 1:16:05Speaker 9: which if if anybody's not familiar with the more Memorial Cup,
- 1:16:09Speaker 9: it's kind of like the National Championship in the NCAA,
- 1:16:12Speaker 9: but the Canadian equivalent of that. That's kind of the
- 1:16:15Speaker 9: magnitude of it. And they say it's the hardest trophy
- 1:16:17Speaker 9: and hockey to win, Like a lot of people say
- 1:16:19Speaker 9: it's harder to win than the Stanley Cup because you
- 1:16:21Speaker 9: have to win your own league trophy and then you
- 1:16:24Speaker 9: essentially go to this like champion league format after that
- 1:16:27Speaker 9: and go and compete for this trophy. And so Tijigammas
- 1:16:30Speaker 9: in Cobo Dwan and Kal Danoa and Gabe Smith, if
- 1:16:34Speaker 9: their teams all win their leagues, then they'll also be
- 1:16:37Speaker 9: in it. And they're all very close, like they're all
- 1:16:39Speaker 9: in the in the finals right now, and dano Aa
- 1:16:42Speaker 9: actually plays tonight for Game seven of his conference final championship.
- 1:16:46Speaker 9: So you know, those guys, you know, we'll have a
- 1:16:49Speaker 9: good chance to develop and get some of these hard
- 1:16:53Speaker 9: games under their belt, and you know, maybe they're better
- 1:16:55Speaker 9: off for it next season when I think they would
- 1:16:57Speaker 9: be playing in the AHL.
- 1:17:00Speaker 5: So now that.
- 1:17:00Speaker 3: The Stanley Cup playoffs move on without us, without the Mammoth,
- 1:17:05Speaker 3: you got Wild Avalanche Game two tonight. The Vegas Golden
- 1:17:09Speaker 3: Knights stole Game one against the Ducks.
- 1:17:12Speaker 5: How do you handicap those second round series?
- 1:17:16Speaker 9: Well, man, I think both of these games were close
- 1:17:21Speaker 9: in in very different ways. You know, Anaheim in Vegas
- 1:17:24Speaker 9: was with the tight game. It was a two to
- 1:17:26Speaker 9: one game plus an empty netter ray that's obviously very tight.
- 1:17:29Speaker 9: And my understanding is that had a couple of called
- 1:17:33Speaker 9: gun the other way, you know, the Ducks probably would
- 1:17:35Speaker 9: have won that game. So that one, you know, I
- 1:17:38Speaker 9: don't think you can quite handicap it yet, Like I
- 1:17:41Speaker 9: think both teams are right there, the wild and the Avalanche.
- 1:17:46Speaker 9: They had the opposite end of the spectrum. It was
- 1:17:48Speaker 9: nine to six, Like that's a when do you ever
- 1:17:51Speaker 9: see that in the Stanley Cup playoffs? A nine to
- 1:17:53Speaker 9: six game, especially between two teams that are heralded to
- 1:17:56Speaker 9: have some of the best defense in the entire league,
- 1:18:00Speaker 9: you know, And so yeah, well we'll see how that
- 1:18:02Speaker 9: one goes. But but you know, it was it was
- 1:18:05Speaker 9: kind of a back and forth effort, like Colorado would
- 1:18:07Speaker 9: take a multiple lead and then Minnesota would come back
- 1:18:09Speaker 9: and tie it up, and then the same thing would
- 1:18:11Speaker 9: happen over again, and by the end it was ninety six.
- 1:18:14Speaker 9: But you know, if if Minnesota can get a few
- 1:18:18Speaker 9: of their injured players back, like Joelle Ericsonachis is probably
- 1:18:22Speaker 9: the prime example, and if he can come back during
- 1:18:24Speaker 9: the series, I think they have a lot better of
- 1:18:26Speaker 9: a chance. But you know, if I'm a betting man,
- 1:18:28Speaker 9: I'd still probably put my money on on Cale mccarr
- 1:18:31Speaker 9: and the Colorado Avalanche at this point.
- 1:18:35Speaker 3: I don't expect you to have any special insight on this,
- 1:18:37Speaker 3: but I'm asking everyone in the hockey world because I
- 1:18:40Speaker 3: think it's fascinating the way that, you know, Connor McDavid
- 1:18:44Speaker 3: played hurt through this series. After this year their season
- 1:18:47Speaker 3: was over, he talked about kind of lamented, you know,
- 1:18:50Speaker 3: the fact that they've been average all year, and I
- 1:18:53Speaker 3: think did a lot of conversation about how they don't
- 1:18:55Speaker 3: have enough around him and maybe a groundswell of support
- 1:18:58Speaker 3: that he needs to get out of Edmonton.
- 1:19:01Speaker 5: Does he stay with the Oilers for one more year?
- 1:19:05Speaker 9: Well, he's still got two years left on his contract,
- 1:19:08Speaker 9: and he signed a two year contract earlier this season,
- 1:19:11Speaker 9: so he intentionally made it so that he would stay
- 1:19:15Speaker 9: for next season and the one after that. So for
- 1:19:17Speaker 9: that reason, I think he's probably going to give them,
- 1:19:21Speaker 9: you know, those those two years that he committed to.
- 1:19:25Speaker 9: But then after that, I think that's where it kind
- 1:19:27Speaker 9: of becomes like, Okay, hey, I gave you the prime
- 1:19:30Speaker 9: of my career. Now I got to go and do
- 1:19:32Speaker 9: what's best for me. And so we'll see, we'll see
- 1:19:35Speaker 9: what that means. We'll see if that it is what happens.
- 1:19:37Speaker 9: But the fact that he signs the two year extension
- 1:19:40Speaker 9: this season, I do think that means that he will
- 1:19:43Speaker 9: probably come back and he'll probably stick it out. And
- 1:19:46Speaker 9: if they trade them. If they trade him, I think
- 1:19:49Speaker 9: it will be because they want to get something back
- 1:19:51Speaker 9: for him so that they can restock the cupboards, rather
- 1:19:55Speaker 9: than him asking for a trade. And like you said,
- 1:19:59Speaker 9: I don't have any inside information on what connovment dated
- 1:20:01Speaker 9: is thinking, but that's kind of the way that I
- 1:20:04Speaker 9: think of the situation that you've been No.
- 1:20:07Speaker 3: It makes perfect sense on both fronts, and that it
- 1:20:11Speaker 3: feels like that would be a wildly unpopular decision for
- 1:20:15Speaker 3: ownership up there in Edmonton if they decided to trade
- 1:20:18Speaker 3: away the generational talent that they've got on the team.
- 1:20:21Speaker 5: But I also understand why you'd want to do it.
- 1:20:23Speaker 9: True, that's true, But at the same time, they traded
- 1:20:27Speaker 9: away Winne Gretzky in the eighties and they went and
- 1:20:29Speaker 9: won the Stanley Cup the next year or a couple
- 1:20:31Speaker 9: of years after rather, so you know they've done it before,
- 1:20:35Speaker 9: not necessarily, like it wasn't necessarily the pieces that they
- 1:20:38Speaker 9: got back for Wayne Gretzky that helped them win the Cup.
- 1:20:41Speaker 9: But you know, the team does kind of have that
- 1:20:43Speaker 9: history of, hey, we have the greatest player of our generation.
- 1:20:47Speaker 9: Trade them away, we can still be a good team.
- 1:20:50Speaker 9: We'll see. Like you said that, the Orders probably don't
- 1:20:53Speaker 9: necessarily have the death around Connor McDavid to win without him,
- 1:20:57Speaker 9: but you know there is a little bit of a
- 1:20:59Speaker 9: precedent for there.
- 1:21:02Speaker 3: Brogain, appreciate your time, Enjoy the rest of the Exit
- 1:21:06Speaker 3: in reviews today. We'll pick your brain about those at
- 1:21:09Speaker 3: some point, I'm sure as well.
- 1:21:10Speaker 5: Thank you sounds good.
- 1:21:12Speaker 9: Thanks for having me on.
- 1:21:13Speaker 3: Broken Houston DEAs News Mammoth Insider, and Yes, Coach Bear
- 1:21:22Speaker 3: coach arm or not Coach Armstrong. Coach Bear, Bill Armstrong
- 1:21:26Speaker 3: and company are expected to speak with the media today
- 1:21:29Speaker 3: and that's I think. You know, Bill Armstrong has been
- 1:21:32Speaker 3: really great about kind of giving you some access to
- 1:21:36Speaker 3: the big picture plan for this team. Now that you
- 1:21:40Speaker 3: know they've crossed off that first item on the list,
- 1:21:44Speaker 3: making it to the playoffs, everyone will tell you that
- 1:21:47Speaker 3: it's harder and harder to advance, and that you know
- 1:21:49Speaker 3: it's probably harder to advance in the playoffs than it
- 1:21:52Speaker 3: is just to make it to the playoffs. Broken made
- 1:21:56Speaker 3: the correct point that the most important pieces on this team,
- 1:22:00Speaker 3: the actual core of this team, is all locked up
- 1:22:04Speaker 3: to long term contract extensions. The accessory pieces, though, might
- 1:22:08Speaker 3: be the thing that separates you from just making it
- 1:22:11Speaker 3: to the playoffs and being a big time playoff contender.
- 1:22:15Speaker 3: What does that look like? Maybe we'll get some insight
- 1:22:18Speaker 3: on it today. We are going to in our number three,
- 1:22:21Speaker 3: we're gonna play some of the player exit interviews sound
- 1:22:25Speaker 3: that we already have and that I promised to give
- 1:22:26Speaker 3: you yesterday and we never got to, so that's still coming.
- 1:22:31Speaker 3: We're gonna take a quick break right here, but up next,
- 1:22:35Speaker 3: we're giving away a round of golf in the Daily
- 1:22:39Speaker 3: Dump courtesy of the Festival of Teas, powered by the
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- 1:23:09Speaker 1: biggest headlines and the Daily News Dump on the Shan
- 1:23:12Speaker 1: o'connall Show, where we flush out the biggest stories of
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- 1:23:38Speaker 3: the Daily Dump is brought to you by our friends
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- 1:24:41Speaker 3: about it earlier with Victor wembin Yama's incredible defensive performance,
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- 1:25:02Speaker 3: free round at sun Hills. All right, I don't mean
- 1:25:09Speaker 3: to sound pretentious, but here's something that is unavoidable. I'm
- 1:25:13Speaker 3: going to Wimbledon this year. You guys going to Wimbledon
- 1:25:16Speaker 3: bucket list, very excited to do it, have never been.
- 1:25:20Speaker 5: Incredibly pumped.
- 1:25:23Speaker 3: You won't be listening anyway, because it's fourth of July
- 1:25:25Speaker 3: weekend when I'm gone, so you'll be out on a
- 1:25:30Speaker 3: boat somewhere, hopefully being very safe and cautious with your fireworks.
- 1:25:34Speaker 3: But trouble may be a bruin, at least on the
- 1:25:39Speaker 3: women's side of professional tennis, Coco goff Arina Sablenka, some
- 1:25:45Speaker 3: of the top players in the world right now are
- 1:25:49Speaker 3: threatening a boycott of the Grand Slam events, which of
- 1:25:53Speaker 3: course would not be good for the top end of
- 1:25:58Speaker 3: all tennis tournaments in the world. By the way, Arena
- 1:26:02Speaker 3: Sablanca right now is the number one ranked women's player
- 1:26:04Speaker 3: in the world, and she has started to organize support
- 1:26:08Speaker 3: for a potential boycott if tennis players don't starting receiving
- 1:26:14Speaker 3: a larger share of tournament revenues at the Grand Slams.
- 1:26:23Speaker 3: On the men's side, number one Yanick Sinner, including other
- 1:26:27Speaker 3: top ten players, issued a statement saying there's deep disappointment
- 1:26:32Speaker 3: over the French Open prize money.
- 1:26:36Speaker 5: Here's the quote.
- 1:26:36Speaker 3: Without us, there wouldn't be a tournament and there wouldn't
- 1:26:39Speaker 3: be that entertainment. I feel like, definitely we deserve to
- 1:26:42Speaker 3: get paid more percentage. That's a four time Grand Slam champion,
- 1:26:48Speaker 3: and she said that at the Italian Open, Arena Sablanca
- 1:26:51Speaker 3: said that at the Italian Open. I think at some
- 1:26:54Speaker 3: point we will boycott it. I feel like that's going
- 1:26:56Speaker 3: to be the only way to fight for our rights.
- 1:27:00Speaker 3: He's twenty eight years old. They're looking for better representation,
- 1:27:06Speaker 3: health options, pensions from the four Grand Slam tournaments. That's
- 1:27:09Speaker 3: the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.
- 1:27:14Speaker 3: If you were going to try to get the maximum
- 1:27:17Speaker 3: amount of leverage, the maximum amount of attention, the maximum
- 1:27:21Speaker 3: amount of support from the fan base to be sympathetic
- 1:27:25Speaker 3: to your plight, which of the Grand Slam tournaments, James,
- 1:27:29Speaker 3: would you boycott in order to make the biggest splash
- 1:27:32Speaker 3: in pro tennis?
- 1:27:33Speaker 6: The French or Wimbledon? Is or are you saying out
- 1:27:36Speaker 6: of all four? Well, of all four, yeah, I mean
- 1:27:41Speaker 6: the one the one that I think around here anyway
- 1:27:46Speaker 6: that would have the least damaging to the to the
- 1:27:51Speaker 6: product of Grand Slam tennis would be in all due respect,
- 1:27:55Speaker 6: is boycotting the Australian Open.
- 1:27:58Speaker 5: But that one's already passed this year.
- 1:28:00Speaker 6: That's just that's the least prestigious, at least at least
- 1:28:03Speaker 6: around here and maybe maybe in Australia. They they it's
- 1:28:06Speaker 6: the opposite or that part of the world, it's it's
- 1:28:08Speaker 6: the opposite. Like US Open might be the least prestigious,
- 1:28:11Speaker 6: but around here it's because we're in America. US Open
- 1:28:15Speaker 6: is is one of the three prestigious. And then it's
- 1:28:18Speaker 6: then it's Australia. So I mean from that standpoint, probably Australia.
- 1:28:23Speaker 6: But for getting the most attention to their cause here,
- 1:28:28Speaker 6: it's the French or Wimbledon.
- 1:28:29Speaker 3: If you boycott Wimbledon when there's not a ton of
- 1:28:32Speaker 3: other sports going on in the summer, I mean, that
- 1:28:35Speaker 3: becomes the biggest story of the summer.
- 1:28:38Speaker 5: Yeah, people are, people will notice.
- 1:28:41Speaker 6: And the French I would say that for French Open too,
- 1:28:45Speaker 6: both of those French there's a little bit more going
- 1:28:48Speaker 6: on because that's what that's this month, right, that's coming
- 1:28:51Speaker 6: up a few weeks. Maybe maybe if it's not this month,
- 1:28:54Speaker 6: it's next month, but that's got a lot of prestige
- 1:28:59Speaker 6: to it. Wimbledon is the one to do it if
- 1:29:02Speaker 6: you're if you're looking at the most attention, and for
- 1:29:04Speaker 6: this kind of thing, attention is the currency you're you're
- 1:29:07Speaker 6: trying to send a message in the way to send
- 1:29:10Speaker 6: the bet for your message to the Land. The hardest
- 1:29:14Speaker 6: is for it to be for you to boycott the
- 1:29:17Speaker 6: biggest tournament on the schedule.
- 1:29:19Speaker 3: May eighteenth through June seventh is the French Open, Okay, yeah,
- 1:29:25Speaker 3: two weeks away.
- 1:29:26Speaker 6: Yeah, and then Wimbledon is three weeks after that. So yikes,
- 1:29:30Speaker 6: I do I do wonder. I always wonder with this,
- 1:29:38Speaker 6: what kind of damage to your career? And this is
- 1:29:44Speaker 6: the risk, this is the risk you have to be
- 1:29:46Speaker 6: willing to take. But what kind of damage to your career?
- 1:29:49Speaker 5: Does?
- 1:29:50Speaker 6: Does boycotting a major tournament a major event in any
- 1:29:55Speaker 6: sport the whole season? Sometimes going on strike? Is is
- 1:30:00Speaker 6: that worth what you're fighting for? And of course if
- 1:30:04Speaker 6: you're making that decision, you're saying, yes, it is worth
- 1:30:07Speaker 6: what we're fighting for, Like we're fighting for our livelihoods here.
- 1:30:11Speaker 5: We want, we want the.
- 1:30:13Speaker 6: Revenue that we feel we've earned, we feel we have
- 1:30:16Speaker 6: a right to. I just I don't know in the
- 1:30:20Speaker 6: long run, are you going to are you going to
- 1:30:22Speaker 6: be like man? I probably would have. I'm things may
- 1:30:26Speaker 6: have been a lot different, been a lot better for
- 1:30:28Speaker 6: me if I had just kept playing.
- 1:30:31Speaker 3: It's a valid question. It's an important question. And here's
- 1:30:34Speaker 3: on the surface level. Here is because I've been involved
- 1:30:38Speaker 3: in a little bit of this with a revenue a
- 1:30:42Speaker 3: share of revenue dispute. In the MMA world, the UFC
- 1:30:46Speaker 3: pays about eleven to fifteen percent of their total revenue
- 1:30:52Speaker 3: goes to the fighters. Now, we know in team leagues,
- 1:30:56Speaker 3: in collectively bargain situations, it's more of a fifty fifth
- 1:31:00Speaker 3: split in the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NHL,
- 1:31:04Speaker 3: et cetera. Right, and the the athletes are compensated accordingly.
- 1:31:08Speaker 3: And we've seen some of what those numbers look like now,
- 1:31:11Speaker 3: especially in baseball and in the NBA. It's just like
- 1:31:14Speaker 3: Holy cow, one you become a star and then one
- 1:31:18Speaker 3: season of your big contract is enough for you to
- 1:31:21Speaker 3: live on for the rest of your life. These tennis
- 1:31:24Speaker 3: players are not in that realm. But the French Open,
- 1:31:30Speaker 3: which is coming up at Rolling at Roland Garros, the
- 1:31:34Speaker 3: revenue share right now is projected to be fourteen point
- 1:31:39Speaker 3: nine percent of the total revenue is paid out in
- 1:31:41Speaker 3: prize money, and the French Open organizers announced last month
- 1:31:47Speaker 3: they were increasing overall prize money by ten percent, so
- 1:31:51Speaker 3: seventy two million dollars basically will be handed out to
- 1:31:56Speaker 3: all the players, which is up about five some five
- 1:32:00Speaker 3: and a half seven and a half million dollars from
- 1:32:04Speaker 3: last year. But the players are like, yeah, yeah, but
- 1:32:06Speaker 3: your revenue has gone up faster than your raises have
- 1:32:10Speaker 3: gone up, so our revenue share has actually gone down
- 1:32:14Speaker 3: the problem with leverage for these mega players is that
- 1:32:19Speaker 3: unless the French Open is just like, okay, well, if
- 1:32:21Speaker 3: I don't have Coco Golf and Yanick Cinner, I'm not playing, like,
- 1:32:25Speaker 3: we're just not going to conduct the tournament. If they
- 1:32:28Speaker 3: boycott this tournament, it just means that someone further down
- 1:32:31Speaker 3: the rankings who absolutely cannot afford to boycott any of
- 1:32:36Speaker 3: these major tournaments, who's never won them before, who's not
- 1:32:39Speaker 3: a household name, then that person wins the tournament and
- 1:32:42Speaker 3: collects the prize money, and it actually works out better
- 1:32:46Speaker 3: for the rank and file tennis player. This is where
- 1:32:49Speaker 3: golf and tennis and auto racing and MMA and some
- 1:32:54Speaker 3: of these are a lot lot different than team sports,
- 1:32:59Speaker 3: because when Steph Curry and Lebron James and Shake Gildess
- 1:33:07Speaker 3: Alexander are like, hey, we're boycotting, We're not playing, their
- 1:33:12Speaker 3: whole team is not playing. If Yonick Center doesn't show
- 1:33:15Speaker 3: up and I'm the eightieth ranked player in the world.
- 1:33:18Speaker 3: I'm like, hell, yes, dude, I have a shot to
- 1:33:20Speaker 3: win this thing now. So all these men ranked in
- 1:33:25Speaker 3: the top ten, all these women ranked in the top ten,
- 1:33:27Speaker 3: the ones who have the leverage you have the power
- 1:33:30Speaker 3: to say, Hey, your tournament is a lot less appealing
- 1:33:32Speaker 3: if I'm not there, So I'm going to boycott. Yeah,
- 1:33:37Speaker 3: that is a motivator for the tournament to look at
- 1:33:39Speaker 3: its policies, for these Grand Slams to look at and say, Okay,
- 1:33:43Speaker 3: how badly do we need these players? But that's the
- 1:33:46Speaker 3: question they're going to ask, not hey, can we still
- 1:33:49Speaker 3: conduct a tournament? The question is going to be how
- 1:33:51Speaker 3: badly do we need Arena Sablenka. Individual sports, you have
- 1:33:56Speaker 3: so much less leverage to create to foment like true
- 1:34:02Speaker 3: rebellion and change. I mean it took until Muhammad Ali
- 1:34:08Speaker 3: literally in boxing. It was boxing was just like so
- 1:34:13Speaker 3: heavily in favor of promoters all through its history, and
- 1:34:17Speaker 3: it was a long standing sport. I mean, boxing has
- 1:34:19Speaker 3: been done for hundreds and hundreds of years, and up
- 1:34:22Speaker 3: to that point had been done at a very high
- 1:34:25Speaker 3: and a very lucrative level for a long time. It
- 1:34:27Speaker 3: literally took until Muhammad Ali was like, no, you know what,
- 1:34:32Speaker 3: I need transparency, I need revenue share to be favored,
- 1:34:36Speaker 3: to favor favorable to fighters. It became a political Ali
- 1:34:40Speaker 3: Act became a thing. It took until Muhammad Ali, who
- 1:34:43Speaker 3: was a transcendent personality, until boxing actually was kind of
- 1:34:48Speaker 3: forced to make some changes and to allow boxers to
- 1:34:52Speaker 3: have a little bit more power. This is like, I
- 1:34:55Speaker 3: don't know if any of these individuals, even as great
- 1:35:00Speaker 3: as they are, the number one ranked players in the world,
- 1:35:02Speaker 3: are going to be at the end of this more
- 1:35:05Speaker 3: powerful than the Grand Slam tournaments themselves.
- 1:35:10Speaker 6: Eightieth ranks men's player in the world. You want to know,
- 1:35:15Speaker 6: the Italian Matia Balucci.
- 1:35:17Speaker 3: Oh yeah, if I'm Matia Balucci, I'm just like, you're
- 1:35:22Speaker 3: telling me that Janick Sooner.
- 1:35:23Speaker 5: Is not going to be there, the Italian Stallion.
- 1:35:26Speaker 3: You tell me that that Spanish kid's not going to
- 1:35:29Speaker 3: be there. The top ten are just lopping themselves off
- 1:35:33Speaker 3: the field.
- 1:35:34Speaker 6: And to your point about individual sports not having the
- 1:35:38Speaker 6: same leverage because you don't have the same unity, right, Yeah,
- 1:35:42Speaker 6: it's not the same incentive structure for everybody.
- 1:35:45Speaker 5: It isn't in team sports either. For individual players.
- 1:35:48Speaker 6: But because you're a team, you kind of have to
- 1:35:50Speaker 6: go in and go out as a team, right, and
- 1:35:53Speaker 6: they do. The big players are incentivized to help the
- 1:35:58Speaker 6: rank and file a little bit negotiations. It's not that
- 1:36:01Speaker 6: way with with individual sports. The example of how of
- 1:36:07Speaker 6: what it took for the for golf, for PGA Tour
- 1:36:13Speaker 6: members to get more prize money was they had was
- 1:36:17Speaker 6: Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman and a bunch of and
- 1:36:22Speaker 6: a bunch of guys, a bunch of top players in
- 1:36:24Speaker 6: the world. It took them creating and the Saudi rab
- 1:36:28Speaker 6: the Saudis took It took them creating a whole rival
- 1:36:31Speaker 6: golf league and giving them hundreds of millions of dollars
- 1:36:35Speaker 6: of guaranteed money for the PGA to be like, oh,
- 1:36:38Speaker 6: we should increase our prize money.
- 1:36:41Speaker 5: We need to increase our prize money.
- 1:36:43Speaker 6: That's probably not gonna happen in tennis, because I mean
- 1:36:47Speaker 6: it that live golf has not been successful. I don't
- 1:36:51Speaker 6: imagine these tennis players and be like, you know what,
- 1:36:53Speaker 6: let's try what they did. They'd make more, They might
- 1:36:57Speaker 6: make more money in the short term, but their careers
- 1:36:59Speaker 6: wouldn't be better.
- 1:37:01Speaker 5: That's not gonna happen in tennis. So but that's the
- 1:37:03Speaker 5: kind of.
- 1:37:03Speaker 6: Thing that it probably takes for in these individual sports
- 1:37:08Speaker 6: for this kind of change to happen.
- 1:37:10Speaker 5: And I to your point, I'm.
- 1:37:12Speaker 6: Not sure that there's enough players that are going to
- 1:37:14Speaker 6: be that are going to be like, yeah, we'll follow you,
- 1:37:18Speaker 6: world leaders in our sport, world ranking leaders in our sport.
- 1:37:22Speaker 6: We'll follow you and not play this great tournament instead
- 1:37:24Speaker 6: of me getting an easier chance to win one of
- 1:37:26Speaker 6: the most prestigious titles in sports.
- 1:37:29Speaker 5: Yeah, look, I think that's happening.
- 1:37:30Speaker 3: And you're like, Okay, there's seventy two million dollars in
- 1:37:32Speaker 3: prize money being handed out at the French Open and
- 1:37:36Speaker 3: then slightly more than that at Wimbledon in effectively a
- 1:37:40Speaker 3: one month span, and the top players are all going
- 1:37:44Speaker 3: to leave, And I'm whatever, it's if you're the top
- 1:37:48Speaker 3: twenty five players are all boycotting, or the top fifty
- 1:37:51Speaker 3: players are all by boycotting, and I'm number twenty six
- 1:37:54Speaker 3: or I'm number fifty one, I'm like, man, do I
- 1:37:59Speaker 3: jump on with them and believe in my own ability
- 1:38:04Speaker 3: to climb the rankings further? And then I'll be with them,
- 1:38:08Speaker 3: and I will I'll suffer through these you know, lean
- 1:38:10Speaker 3: times in order to have a greater payout on the
- 1:38:13Speaker 3: other side, or do I cross the labor line?
- 1:38:18Speaker 5: Am I a scab in this tournament?
- 1:38:19Speaker 3: And do I get the biggest payday of my career
- 1:38:22Speaker 3: in an easier field. I mean, it's like, I know
- 1:38:25Speaker 3: that in principle it's better to do the first thing,
- 1:38:31Speaker 3: but the reality of a situation is and this is
- 1:38:34Speaker 3: the problem that we've had in combat sports. Right If
- 1:38:39Speaker 3: Ronda Rousey and Connor McGregor are just like in John Jones,
- 1:38:42Speaker 3: this is what John Jones has done. It's like, I'm
- 1:38:45Speaker 3: not fighting for you unless you give me forty million bucks.
- 1:38:51Speaker 5: He's the best that's ever done it.
- 1:38:52Speaker 3: And you know what the response was, Okay, we'll bring
- 1:38:57Speaker 3: up the next one and that guy will fight for
- 1:39:00Speaker 3: one million dollars and our profit margin will stay as
- 1:39:04Speaker 3: robust as it has always been. Right now, By the way,
- 1:39:09Speaker 3: the Professional Tennis Players Association, the PTPA, is seven years old,
- 1:39:16Speaker 3: so it's not exactly a powerful body. Right now, the
- 1:39:19Speaker 3: official union for tennis players is the Association of Tennis
- 1:39:24Speaker 3: Professionals the ATP. The ATP represents guess who players and tournaments.
- 1:39:30Speaker 3: It's like the NFL and the NFLPA being in the
- 1:39:33Speaker 3: same building.
- 1:39:33Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, they're called the ATP World Rankings, so
- 1:39:36Speaker 6: they're kind of the they're kind of management and in
- 1:39:40Speaker 6: the union.
- 1:39:40Speaker 4: They represent both sides of the arguments.
- 1:39:43Speaker 3: So what's what's good for what's good for the tournaments
- 1:39:46Speaker 3: is good for the ATP.
- 1:39:48Speaker 5: Also what's good for the players is good for the ATP.
- 1:39:51Speaker 3: So the ATP has interested in being like, well, let's
- 1:39:53Speaker 3: get everyone to the same table, and we want to
- 1:39:55Speaker 3: make everyone feel happy. But it's not automatic for them
- 1:39:58Speaker 3: to be fighting for the best interest of the players
- 1:40:01Speaker 3: in this case, and that's why a boycott is being threatened.
- 1:40:04Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I to be clear, I'm I hope
- 1:40:08Speaker 6: that if they do decide to boycott, that it is
- 1:40:11Speaker 6: effective because, I mean, everybody, there's more money to go
- 1:40:16Speaker 6: around for everybody than than than generally what gets led
- 1:40:21Speaker 6: on by a lot of management, right, and I want
- 1:40:24Speaker 6: that to be spread around. But I just I question
- 1:40:27Speaker 6: how My question is how effective is that going to be?
- 1:40:30Speaker 6: And are they going to regret it because of their
- 1:40:33Speaker 6: careers They're gonna regret that that move for the what
- 1:40:36Speaker 6: it did to their careers. Later and I don't know.
- 1:40:39Speaker 6: I hope this works for the players.
- 1:40:40Speaker 3: I'm very pro player in this regard, but because fifteen
- 1:40:44Speaker 3: percent of a tournament's revenue going to the athletes that
- 1:40:47Speaker 3: are the absolute showpiece of the tournament not nearly enough.
- 1:40:52Speaker 3: It should be closer to a I mean, in my
- 1:40:55Speaker 3: bare minimum for me would be like a sixty forty
- 1:40:58Speaker 3: split seventy thirty. I could probably if it, you know,
- 1:41:03Speaker 3: puts you in a ten million dollars range for winning
- 1:41:05Speaker 3: the whole thing. But like fifteen percent of the UFC
- 1:41:10Speaker 3: money going to the fighters, fifteen percent of the French
- 1:41:13Speaker 3: Open money going to the players, fifteen percent of the
- 1:41:15Speaker 3: Wimbledon money going to the players.
- 1:41:17Speaker 5: Is embarrassingly low. It's terrible.
- 1:41:20Speaker 3: You're telling me that the owners of those clubs and
- 1:41:23Speaker 3: the organizers of those events deserve eighty five percent of
- 1:41:28Speaker 3: the revenue. We don't tune in to watch them. Actually,
- 1:41:32Speaker 3: this was just released yesterday. The there's a guy named
- 1:41:35Speaker 3: Ari Emmanuel who's the CEO of TKO Holdings, which is
- 1:41:39Speaker 3: the parent company that owns the UFC and the WWE
- 1:41:47Speaker 3: and stuff. The tax filings were released and his salary
- 1:41:51Speaker 3: was reported. He made sixty seven million dollars when there's
- 1:41:58Speaker 3: fighters literally competing for ten thousand dollars and he made
- 1:42:05Speaker 3: sixty seven million to be the boss. Who doesn't I mean,
- 1:42:09Speaker 3: I get it right. It's an apples and oranges comparison.
- 1:42:14Speaker 3: To be the leadership of a mega company and to
- 1:42:17Speaker 3: be wildly profitable, you should be compensated handsomely. But if
- 1:42:20Speaker 3: your sixty seven million dollar paycheck is coming from the
- 1:42:24Speaker 3: eighty five percent split that you're keeping away from the athletes,
- 1:42:28Speaker 3: that's criminal. And if that's the case with these tennis
- 1:42:31Speaker 3: tours and these tennis tournaments, yuck. That's your daily dump.
- 1:42:37Speaker 3: By the way, I went really long on that. I
- 1:42:38Speaker 3: didn't expect to valley plumbing, heating, and air conditioning. The
- 1:42:45Speaker 3: truck with the duck will take care of all of
- 1:42:47Speaker 3: it for you. Okay, we're gonna double up here and
- 1:42:49Speaker 3: we're gonna go to Stormy bon and TONI at.
- 1:42:52Speaker 4: The top of hour number three.
- 1:42:54Speaker 3: After that, I promise you, I will give you the
- 1:42:58Speaker 3: Utah place in the latest ESPN preseason football rankings, and
- 1:43:03Speaker 3: you're not gonna like it. Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven
- 1:43:06Speaker 3: hundred ninety two one FM.
- 1:43:10Speaker 1: Good, it's the Sean O'Connell Show. You're home of the
- 1:43:20Speaker 1: best inside of your use. Let's get back to OC
- 1:43:23Speaker 1: from the Murdoch Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred ninety
- 1:43:28Speaker 1: two one af.
- 1:43:29Speaker 2: AM Sean O'Connell.
- 1:43:31Speaker 3: Show continues here on ESPN seven hundred ninety two one
- 1:43:34Speaker 3: f them, and we are happy to welcome Stormy Van
- 1:43:37Speaker 3: and Tony Uh. You have seen her on the NHL Playoffs,
- 1:43:41Speaker 3: you see her on the sidelines during college football, and
- 1:43:45Speaker 3: hopefully we'll see her sooner than later again here in
- 1:43:48Speaker 3: Salt Lake City, although I guess it would be in
- 1:43:50Speaker 3: college football now that the Utah Mammoth are out.
- 1:43:53Speaker 4: Stormy, welcome to the show.
- 1:43:55Speaker 5: How are you.
- 1:43:56Speaker 11: I'm great, Thank you so much for having me. And yes,
- 1:43:58Speaker 11: I've spent a good amount of time in Salt Lake
- 1:44:00Speaker 11: for football, but a good amount this past first round
- 1:44:03Speaker 11: watching the Mammoth, which is a black Thanks for having me, so.
- 1:44:07Speaker 5: I wanted to talk about that obviously.
- 1:44:10Speaker 3: You know, we unfortunately have to move on to the
- 1:44:13Speaker 3: second round of the Mammoth or not part of that
- 1:44:14Speaker 3: second round.
- 1:44:15Speaker 5: Your hometown Las.
- 1:44:17Speaker 3: Vegas Golden Knights were able to knock out a fresh
- 1:44:21Speaker 3: Mammoth team their first foray into the playoffs, but I
- 1:44:25Speaker 3: just wanted to get your sense of not only the
- 1:44:28Speaker 3: team and its competitiveness in that first playoff run, but
- 1:44:32Speaker 3: I think from a larger scale where they belong now
- 1:44:36Speaker 3: already in the NHL. You hear players and coaches and
- 1:44:41Speaker 3: pundits around the league talking about, you know, the way
- 1:44:44Speaker 3: that this team has already developed a reputation for treating
- 1:44:47Speaker 3: its players. Well, maybe Salt Lake can actually be a
- 1:44:50Speaker 3: destination in hockey the way that we've struggled to be
- 1:44:53Speaker 3: in NBA basketball. And you get to talk to more
- 1:44:55Speaker 3: people than I do, so your sense of what the
- 1:44:57Speaker 3: Mammoth can grow into with this good start.
- 1:45:01Speaker 11: Absolutely, I think there's a lot of excitement, rightfully so
- 1:45:04Speaker 11: about what Utah has been able to do just in
- 1:45:07Speaker 11: its second year out there in Salt Lake. And I
- 1:45:10Speaker 11: think last season there was a lot of figuring out
- 1:45:13Speaker 11: what are We didn't even have a name, And now
- 1:45:16Speaker 11: you are in a position where it wasn't a question
- 1:45:19Speaker 11: of if this team was going to make the playoffs,
- 1:45:22Speaker 11: but how they were going to get there, because there
- 1:45:24Speaker 11: was such a firm belief they were going to get
- 1:45:25Speaker 11: to that point. And we're very competitive with Vegas I honestly,
- 1:45:29Speaker 11: I feel for the Mammoth and I feel for Maymoth bands,
- 1:45:32Speaker 11: knowing that the first five games of that series they
- 1:45:35Speaker 11: had third period leads and then still found themselves down
- 1:45:38Speaker 11: three games to two and on the break of elimination,
- 1:45:41Speaker 11: and even when kyler Yavamona scored that goal in the
- 1:45:43Speaker 11: third period, you think, okay, there's life. We got a
- 1:45:45Speaker 11: game here. And then obviously things fell to the wayside
- 1:45:48Speaker 11: and Vegas closed out the job. But what Utah has
- 1:45:52Speaker 11: in terms of the blend of youth experience to do
- 1:45:55Speaker 11: what Montreal is doing right now. They're the youngest even
- 1:45:57Speaker 11: the playoffs, but Utah was the second youngest team in
- 1:46:00Speaker 11: the postseason, and there is so much to build on.
- 1:46:03Speaker 11: I mean, the way that we saw Clayton Keller becomes
- 1:46:07Speaker 11: such a leader and drive the bus for this team,
- 1:46:10Speaker 11: Logan Cooley, Dylan Gunster in the shot that he has,
- 1:46:13Speaker 11: but mixed with some of that better leadership and guys
- 1:46:15Speaker 11: who have Cup experience, I think it's a really fun
- 1:46:18Speaker 11: blend that you guys have and a fan base that
- 1:46:22Speaker 11: is really excited about that team and organizational feel as
- 1:46:26Speaker 11: a whole. As you said, like what Ryan Smith has
- 1:46:28Speaker 11: done to keep fans engaged in trying to get new fans.
- 1:46:32Speaker 11: What he was doing in his owners suite on Twitter
- 1:46:35Speaker 11: to saying hey, hit me up if you haven't been
- 1:46:37Speaker 11: to a game. Like prioritizing people that hadn't been there
- 1:46:40Speaker 11: so that they could fall in love with the team
- 1:46:42Speaker 11: in the sport I thought was really special.
- 1:46:43Speaker 5: Yeah, it's pretty cool you did allude to.
- 1:46:46Speaker 3: I think one of the most heartbreaking things about the
- 1:46:48Speaker 3: series for Mammoth fans in that they there were those
- 1:46:52Speaker 3: blown leads and you felt like, not only hey, we're
- 1:46:54Speaker 3: in the playoffs, we're just happy.
- 1:46:56Speaker 4: To be here.
- 1:46:56Speaker 3: It's like this is a series that they could have won,
- 1:46:59Speaker 3: and they played their way into leading positions and should
- 1:47:02Speaker 3: have been able to close it out potentially. But what
- 1:47:06Speaker 3: was missing and what caused them to give up those leads?
- 1:47:10Speaker 3: Is it just a simple Hey, you don't have playoff
- 1:47:12Speaker 3: experience and the Knights are built for this, they've been
- 1:47:15Speaker 3: here before. Because I know that, we get like it
- 1:47:19Speaker 3: can become cliche like all you got to grow into
- 1:47:21Speaker 3: this or you gotta you gotta be there first and
- 1:47:24Speaker 3: the next year is the time that you'll actually win it.
- 1:47:26Speaker 3: The Knights are a good example of how it doesn't
- 1:47:28Speaker 3: have to be that way with all the all the
- 1:47:30Speaker 3: success they had when they were a brand new expansion franchise.
- 1:47:33Speaker 3: But when you watched this series so closely, what was
- 1:47:36Speaker 3: the missing piece for the mammoth.
- 1:47:38Speaker 5: In your mind?
- 1:47:39Speaker 6: Sure?
- 1:47:40Speaker 11: And I'll say for Vegas, like, there's the exception not
- 1:47:43Speaker 11: the rules right. What they were able to do and
- 1:47:45Speaker 11: hear one as an expansion franchise and go all the
- 1:47:47Speaker 11: way to the Stanley Cup Final is absurd and ridiculous
- 1:47:51Speaker 11: and fans across the country have but mattavs Ever sits
- 1:47:53Speaker 11: for it. It has gone away. But with u Jah,
- 1:47:56Speaker 11: I think maybe there is an element of that and
- 1:47:59Speaker 11: I did it appreciate Andre Tourney kind of repeatedly throughout
- 1:48:02Speaker 11: the series, challenging that youth birth experience narrative to an
- 1:48:06Speaker 11: extent and saying how even some of the young guys
- 1:48:08Speaker 11: on this roster have played in pivotal games in different
- 1:48:11Speaker 11: areas of their careers, just not the NHL postseason specifically.
- 1:48:15Speaker 11: That said, it did feel like Vegas had a bit
- 1:48:18Speaker 11: of a killer instinct in their game in the third
- 1:48:20Speaker 11: period and in overtime and drawing Utah into some of
- 1:48:23Speaker 11: those undisciplined penalties With some of those younger pieces, it
- 1:48:28Speaker 11: felt like there was, like to me, at least a
- 1:48:31Speaker 11: comfort in the uncomfortable for Vegas, whereas Utah in a
- 1:48:34Speaker 11: lot of those moments did in my opinion, like I
- 1:48:38Speaker 11: just perceived them to potentially be learning a little bit.
- 1:48:41Speaker 11: And maybe that's inaccurate. Maybe it was just bounces down
- 1:48:43Speaker 11: Vegas more than Utah, but to me, I do think
- 1:48:47Speaker 11: that that experience played a role. But now the good
- 1:48:51Speaker 11: news is they they have done right and they were
- 1:48:54Speaker 11: able to gain that experience this postseason and can learn
- 1:48:57Speaker 11: for it and put it into action next year.
- 1:49:00Speaker 3: You can't decide if I like the developing rivalry for
- 1:49:03Speaker 3: Vegas enough to say I don't want to see the
- 1:49:05Speaker 3: Golden Knights succeed moving forward, or if it's like, hey,
- 1:49:08Speaker 3: they're the team that knocked you out, now I want
- 1:49:10Speaker 3: to see them like that means something.
- 1:49:12Speaker 5: Let them make a run to the Cup again.
- 1:49:15Speaker 3: And they sneak out to a one game lead so
- 1:49:18Speaker 3: far in the second round series over the Ducks, while
- 1:49:20Speaker 3: Bill Carlson is back. When you look at what this
- 1:49:24Speaker 3: Golden Knights team is capable of moving forward after beating
- 1:49:27Speaker 3: the Mammoth, what is their ceiling in these playoffs.
- 1:49:30Speaker 11: Yeah, and I was on the broadcast last night, and
- 1:49:32Speaker 11: I know Vegas was not particularly pleased with their game
- 1:49:37Speaker 11: in that Game one, yet they were stillingful to come
- 1:49:39Speaker 11: out with a win, And I just talked about the
- 1:49:42Speaker 11: experience and the confidence they have in late game moments
- 1:49:44Speaker 11: that showed again last night for them to pull away
- 1:49:47Speaker 11: and get that win in the third period. They've been
- 1:49:49Speaker 11: masterful in third periods all season long, but to do
- 1:49:52Speaker 11: it in the postseason the way they have, I think
- 1:49:53Speaker 11: shows exactly what we're talking about here. My gun, like ESPN,
- 1:49:58Speaker 11: has us make our picks for each year going into
- 1:50:00Speaker 11: each one, and I did pick Vegas to win the
- 1:50:02Speaker 11: series in six. I think they advanced to the Western
- 1:50:06Speaker 11: Conference Final, but the road probably ends there. Knowing what
- 1:50:11Speaker 11: Colorado or the Minnesota Wild have on the other side,
- 1:50:14Speaker 11: I think is just a little bit of a different
- 1:50:15Speaker 11: level than where Vegas is at this season. So to me,
- 1:50:18Speaker 11: their peak this year is Western Conference Final. I would
- 1:50:22Speaker 11: love to be proven wrong, especially, like you mentioned earlier,
- 1:50:24Speaker 11: living in this city and I know how fun Vegas
- 1:50:28Speaker 11: can be when the Golden Knights are good and at
- 1:50:30Speaker 11: a high level. That said, to go back to your
- 1:50:33Speaker 11: point about the rivalry. I would love for this to
- 1:50:38Speaker 11: be something that grows over the years, especially because of
- 1:50:42Speaker 11: the footprint right and that Utah used to be in
- 1:50:46Speaker 11: the Vegas TV market before this team ultimately came to town.
- 1:50:51Speaker 11: And like what Ryan Smith did with trading in the
- 1:50:55Speaker 11: Golden Knights jerseys for Mammos jerseys, and my first job
- 1:51:00Speaker 11: in hockey was with the Golden Knights, and I remember
- 1:51:02Speaker 11: vividly like the VGK road trips that they would do
- 1:51:06Speaker 11: every summer in the off season, going to Salt Lake
- 1:51:09Speaker 11: City and going to like Wyoming and Montana and all
- 1:51:14Speaker 11: these different places to become kind of that second team
- 1:51:16Speaker 11: in the Rocky Mountain region outside of Colorado, and Utah
- 1:51:20Speaker 11: was a big part of that footprint. And so to know,
- 1:51:23Speaker 11: like you guys kind of stole a little bit of
- 1:51:25Speaker 11: that footprint and are young and up and coming and
- 1:51:28Speaker 11: a rock solid playoffs team in the future playing in
- 1:51:31Speaker 11: the Pacific Division. I would love to see what this
- 1:51:33Speaker 11: can grow into over the years.
- 1:51:36Speaker 3: Stormy Bond and Tony's our guest here on the Sean
- 1:51:38Speaker 3: O'Connell show, ESPN College Football and NHL Reporter. She's got
- 1:51:43Speaker 3: her own show on Serious XM on vsin network. It
- 1:51:52Speaker 3: feels like with the USA Gold medal, and obviously here
- 1:51:56Speaker 3: in Salt Lake City, like we become our own bubble
- 1:52:00Speaker 3: and our own little echo chamber. And I'm like, this
- 1:52:02Speaker 3: is this is a real moment for hockey in the
- 1:52:05Speaker 3: United States of America because you got the gold and
- 1:52:09Speaker 3: the league is growing, and these NHL playoffs have been
- 1:52:13Speaker 3: incredible that everyone seems like is watching. The reality of
- 1:52:18Speaker 3: the NHL is they have been a relatively distant fourth
- 1:52:22Speaker 3: place in the major sports. But it's just now that
- 1:52:26Speaker 3: we have our own team, I find myself being like,
- 1:52:29Speaker 3: let's fix that. This is way better than NBA playoffs.
- 1:52:32Speaker 3: This is second to only football. Do you still view
- 1:52:37Speaker 3: the NHL and professional hockey as a growth sport in
- 1:52:41Speaker 3: the grand scheme of things in the United States?
- 1:52:44Speaker 11: I think that the ratings will tell you that story, right,
- 1:52:49Speaker 11: And I think hockey at its core because of the
- 1:52:53Speaker 11: difficulty to get involved in it and how expensive a
- 1:52:57Speaker 11: report it is, for equipment, for travel, for all of
- 1:53:01Speaker 11: those things, it makes it a little bit more difficult
- 1:53:03Speaker 11: at the grassroots level to have the expansiveness that a
- 1:53:07Speaker 11: sport like basketball, for example, does, where you can just
- 1:53:09Speaker 11: pick up a ball and they'll play pick up at
- 1:53:11Speaker 11: a hoop. Anywhere you have to have ice, you have
- 1:53:13Speaker 11: to have equipment, you have to have different things to
- 1:53:15Speaker 11: get you involved. And I think that's at least part
- 1:53:18Speaker 11: of why hockey has been on that tier, because it's
- 1:53:22Speaker 11: just it's one of those sports that the access to
- 1:53:25Speaker 11: it is more difficult at a younger level. I think
- 1:53:28Speaker 11: organizations like Vegas, like Utah specifically getting people and young
- 1:53:35Speaker 11: people into a sport that maybe they weren't familiarized, can
- 1:53:39Speaker 11: change and grow that. So yes, I do view it
- 1:53:41Speaker 11: still as a growth sport big picture nationwide. However, you
- 1:53:45Speaker 11: mentioned it, it is growing, and the television ratings that
- 1:53:48Speaker 11: we're seeing this year from the first round of the
- 1:53:50Speaker 11: playoffs and entering the second or the highest that they
- 1:53:52Speaker 11: have ever been. They're setting records. It's kind of in
- 1:53:55Speaker 11: my mind, catapulted with four nations a year ago and
- 1:53:59Speaker 11: seeing the US Canada go at it, and then obviously
- 1:54:02Speaker 11: as you reference the Olympics this year and what that
- 1:54:04Speaker 11: continued to build into. I think that this sport can
- 1:54:09Speaker 11: and should become bigger and bigger and bigger because there's
- 1:54:13Speaker 11: nothing like it.
- 1:54:14Speaker 1: Like I.
- 1:54:16Speaker 11: Say this all the time, and I've covered every sport
- 1:54:19Speaker 11: across the book. There is no better live event experience
- 1:54:24Speaker 11: in forced than live hockey. It is just different. And
- 1:54:27Speaker 11: so I think another part of our goal as television
- 1:54:30Speaker 11: broadcasters is trying to make that more consumable on TV
- 1:54:33Speaker 11: because it is a more difficult watch, I think on
- 1:54:36Speaker 11: television as well, just because the puckets ball, you know,
- 1:54:39Speaker 11: and when you're in person you see the physicality, you
- 1:54:41Speaker 11: see the technical detail that it takes to skate and
- 1:54:44Speaker 11: set up things that the way that they do, it's amazing.
- 1:54:46Speaker 11: I love this sport so much, and it would make
- 1:54:50Speaker 11: it would nothing would make me happier to see this become,
- 1:54:54Speaker 11: like become bigger than the NBA. I don't know if
- 1:54:57Speaker 11: that'll happen, but that's my greed.
- 1:54:59Speaker 3: I also, and I don't know if it matters to
- 1:55:01Speaker 3: other people, it matters a lot to me, like growing
- 1:55:04Speaker 3: into technical proficiency and learning more about the sport and
- 1:55:08Speaker 3: understanding more and more of what you see. It's a
- 1:55:11Speaker 3: heck of a lot easier in hockey to get on
- 1:55:13Speaker 3: board with it because of for me, the athletes, as
- 1:55:17Speaker 3: far as professional athletes go, hockey guys are like the coolest,
- 1:55:22Speaker 3: the most laid back, seemingly as passionate or more passionate
- 1:55:26Speaker 3: about their sport than any other professional athlete. Is they
- 1:55:29Speaker 3: play hurt more than everyone does. You don't get conversations
- 1:55:33Speaker 3: about load management. You don't talk about like, oh yeah,
- 1:55:37Speaker 3: I don't want to play in the Winter Classic, I
- 1:55:39Speaker 3: don't want to play in the Olympics. I don't want
- 1:55:42Speaker 3: to play in the Four Nations because I need to
- 1:55:44Speaker 3: focus on my NHL career what actually matters my paycheck.
- 1:55:50Speaker 3: Just the culture of hockey is so refreshing, given how
- 1:55:54Speaker 3: even our college sports now have become more and more
- 1:55:57Speaker 3: and more about money and business coming conversations.
- 1:56:01Speaker 11: No question about it. There is a toughness to the
- 1:56:05Speaker 11: NHL that I appreciate so much. I mean, look at
- 1:56:09Speaker 11: even the Edmonton Oilers who just got knocked out of
- 1:56:11Speaker 11: the first round by Anaheim and Connor McDavid. He was
- 1:56:14Speaker 11: visibly her he's playing through a fractured ankle. I have
- 1:56:18Speaker 11: seen players behind the scenes who are on like a
- 1:56:23Speaker 11: rollie thing for an injury, like those little scooters you know, yes,
- 1:56:27Speaker 11: aren't that They aren't walking day to day around the
- 1:56:30Speaker 11: facility or anything like that, yet strap on a skate
- 1:56:34Speaker 11: and go block shots in an nhl' Stanley Cup playoff game.
- 1:56:38Speaker 11: There is. It's ridiculous and so yeah, like you know
- 1:56:42Speaker 11: when you're going to an NHL game that if a
- 1:56:44Speaker 11: guy can play, he's gonna play. You don't have to
- 1:56:46Speaker 11: worry about that. And just another reason, like you said
- 1:56:50Speaker 11: to to fall in love with this sport, it is
- 1:56:53Speaker 11: these dudes are different, and I'm it makes me excited about,
- 1:56:56Speaker 11: for example, the Kachuck Brothers podcast wing Men that come
- 1:57:00Speaker 11: out so that people can start to see some of
- 1:57:02Speaker 11: these athletes personality a little bit more. Hockey is definitely
- 1:57:05Speaker 11: a more team and we over eye type of a sport,
- 1:57:10Speaker 11: and at times they can get into the cliche answers
- 1:57:13Speaker 11: and just wanting to say the right thing. And I
- 1:57:16Speaker 11: think if some of these athletes would let you in
- 1:57:18Speaker 11: a little bit more and see their personality, because there's
- 1:57:20Speaker 11: some of the funnest and coolest dudes out there too,
- 1:57:22Speaker 11: they let people see that a little bit more league wide,
- 1:57:25Speaker 11: I think that would really help the cause as well.
- 1:57:28Speaker 3: I'm going to be unfair and I'm going to ask
- 1:57:30Speaker 3: you a college football question when you're in full hockey mode.
- 1:57:33Speaker 5: Okay, because it's been it's.
- 1:57:36Speaker 3: Been a wild offseason here in Salt Lake City, and
- 1:57:38Speaker 3: as we talked about, you spent a lot of time
- 1:57:41Speaker 3: here on the sidelines covering a Utah team that for
- 1:57:44Speaker 3: so many years it was just like death taxes in
- 1:57:47Speaker 3: Utah football. To quote Joel Klatt, it was always Kyle Whittingham.
- 1:57:53Speaker 3: You know what this team is going to look like.
- 1:57:55Speaker 3: You know what this team is going to be identity wise,
- 1:57:58Speaker 3: And I think we're going to get a continue suation
- 1:58:00Speaker 3: of that with the new coach, Morgan Scalley. But I
- 1:58:02Speaker 3: have not yet talked to you and got your perspective
- 1:58:05Speaker 3: on the off season this program has had on the
- 1:58:08Speaker 3: departure of Kyle Whittingham, him going to Michigan.
- 1:58:10Speaker 5: And now a fresh start here in Salt Lake for a.
- 1:58:14Speaker 3: Guy who played under Kyle Whittingham, coached his whole career
- 1:58:17Speaker 3: under Kyle Whittingham, but is now taking that baton and
- 1:58:20Speaker 3: hopefully running with it. Your thoughts on a new brand
- 1:58:24Speaker 3: of Utah football given that what we we have covered
- 1:58:27Speaker 3: and you have covered for so long has been, you know.
- 1:58:30Speaker 5: Kind of the same.
- 1:58:32Speaker 11: Yeah, I know, it's got to be a little bit
- 1:58:34Speaker 11: surreal for some fans in the area. And knowing that
- 1:58:36Speaker 11: Whittingham has been at the Hell for the last two decades,
- 1:58:39Speaker 11: and then when you think he's retiring and passing the
- 1:58:42Speaker 11: torch to Morgan Scalley, he actually isn't retiring and goes
- 1:58:46Speaker 11: over to Michigan. And I mean, and kudos to Michigan
- 1:58:50Speaker 11: on the standpoint of for as much like purmoil and
- 1:58:53Speaker 11: controversy as they've had, bringing in as rock solid of
- 1:58:57Speaker 11: a human and a coach as you can imagine. But
- 1:59:00Speaker 11: obviously that takes away from Utah, and he takes Jason
- 1:59:04Speaker 11: Beck with him as well, who had the relationship that
- 1:59:07Speaker 11: he had with Devin Dampier, who I think that's such
- 1:59:10Speaker 11: a feather in the cap for Morgan scally to not
- 1:59:12Speaker 11: only keep Dampier, but Bert Sicklin as well, and seeing
- 1:59:16Speaker 11: what that can look like offensively with the two of them,
- 1:59:19Speaker 11: and knowing that there's no hostility between them, that they're
- 1:59:22Speaker 11: like brothers, they're best friends. They don't live together, but
- 1:59:25Speaker 11: basically do they're together as much as they are, and
- 1:59:28Speaker 11: I think that was huge for him. But in terms
- 1:59:31Speaker 11: of continuity, I feel like Morgan scally is gonna keep
- 1:59:35Speaker 11: a lot a lot of that right, Like he learned
- 1:59:38Speaker 11: from every step of the way Kyle Whittingham, He's been
- 1:59:41Speaker 11: a part of this program for years and years and years.
- 1:59:44Speaker 11: He was always the head coach in waiting and was
- 1:59:45Speaker 11: probably a little bit tired of waiting, and if he
- 1:59:48Speaker 11: had to wait anymore, he probably would have been the
- 1:59:50Speaker 11: one to lead. So for him to be a young,
- 1:59:53Speaker 11: up and coming guy that has the same mentality and
- 1:59:57Speaker 11: has been building that defense and the identity of the
- 2:00:00Speaker 11: defense for years, I feel like Utah is still going
- 2:00:02Speaker 11: to be in a really good place.
- 2:00:04Speaker 3: That's the hope fingers crossed. And obviously when we get
- 2:00:08Speaker 3: to college football season, we'll be talking to you about
- 2:00:11Speaker 3: that as well. When do you start shifting into that
- 2:00:14Speaker 3: mode after the Stanley Cup playoffs?
- 2:00:17Speaker 11: Yes, I need to get through the Cup for sure,
- 2:00:21Speaker 11: and I keep tabs on things here and there at
- 2:00:24Speaker 11: the other network that I work for Beson. You mentioned
- 2:00:26Speaker 11: on Perious Exam one of my good friends and fellow hosts,
- 2:00:30Speaker 11: Kim Murray. He does like every three week college football
- 2:00:34Speaker 11: podcast in the off season, and so that really helps
- 2:00:37Speaker 11: heat me at least dialed on the news and everything
- 2:00:40Speaker 11: that's going on aside from Brendon Sarsby. Because that certainly
- 2:00:43Speaker 11: caught my attention neither you're nor there, but yes, after
- 2:00:47Speaker 11: the Family Cup Final is really when I start to
- 2:00:49Speaker 11: shift my attention much more deep into both college football
- 2:00:53Speaker 11: and the NFL.
- 2:00:53Speaker 5: Well, hold on, because you mentioned it.
- 2:00:55Speaker 3: I is Brendt Sorsby playing college football in the twenty
- 2:01:00Speaker 3: twenty sixth season.
- 2:01:03Speaker 11: I don't know how he can. So I will be
- 2:01:07Speaker 11: keeping cabs on this every time there is a new
- 2:01:10Speaker 11: development as we go. But the rules that the NCAA
- 2:01:15Speaker 11: are as clear as day on what you can and
- 2:01:17Speaker 11: cannot do, especially around sports betting, whether whether a lot
- 2:01:21Speaker 11: of it is correct or in. For act, I mean
- 2:01:23Speaker 11: the fact that Torsi was betting on games that his
- 2:01:26Speaker 11: team was in. Yes it was to win, and yes
- 2:01:28Speaker 11: it was games that he wasn't involved in it. It's
- 2:01:30Speaker 11: very blatantly and clearly against the rules. You, as an
- 2:01:34Speaker 11: NCAA athlete or employee at any level, cannot bet on
- 2:01:39Speaker 11: any of the sponsored sports under the NCAA umbrella or
- 2:01:44Speaker 11: professional sports that are under that umbrella. They are very
- 2:01:47Speaker 11: strict and clear on what those are and for you
- 2:01:50Speaker 11: to blatantly avoid that and have all of these betting
- 2:01:52Speaker 11: apps on your phone while also having the I can't
- 2:01:55Speaker 11: remember the name of the app that that the NCAA
- 2:01:58Speaker 11: makes you have on your phone as an athlete now
- 2:02:00Speaker 11: as a part of this, so while having like that
- 2:02:02Speaker 11: betting thing on your phone as well, it's just it's
- 2:02:07Speaker 11: just it's just stupidity. So I don't I don't have
- 2:02:10Speaker 11: a lot of sympathy for that when you know the
- 2:02:12Speaker 11: rules and blatantly break them. So I'm very serious to
- 2:02:15Speaker 11: see how.
- 2:02:15Speaker 9: This is going to play out.
- 2:02:17Speaker 3: I will be watching it very closely as well, and
- 2:02:20Speaker 3: we look forward to more conversations when we get to
- 2:02:23Speaker 3: that point in the season.
- 2:02:24Speaker 5: Have fun with the rest of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
- 2:02:26Speaker 5: Wish our mammoth.
- 2:02:27Speaker 3: We're continuing, but it's worth watching anyone out there, even
- 2:02:31Speaker 3: with your team out. I promise you these series in
- 2:02:34Speaker 3: the West and even in the East have been really
- 2:02:36Speaker 3: fascinating so far.
- 2:02:38Speaker 5: Stormy.
- 2:02:38Speaker 3: I think you're one of the best in the business.
- 2:02:40Speaker 3: I appreciate you giving us some time today.
- 2:02:42Speaker 11: Thank you, thank you so much for having me. Hope
- 2:02:45Speaker 11: to talk to you soon.
- 2:02:46Speaker 3: Stormy one and Tony ESPN College Football and NHL Insider reporter.
- 2:02:52Speaker 5: You'll see her on the sidelines, you will see her
- 2:02:54Speaker 5: rink side.
- 2:02:55Speaker 3: She does a fantastic job and if you like the
- 2:02:58Speaker 3: gambling flavor, especially on things, check her out on Series
- 2:03:02Speaker 3: XM and V SIN Live.
- 2:03:05Speaker 4: Lot's left to get to here On The Sean O'Connell.
- 2:03:07Speaker 5: Show, don't go anywhere. It's ESPN seven M.
- 2:03:17Speaker 1: You're tuned to The Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
- 2:03:20Speaker 1: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven.
- 2:03:32Speaker 9: KEN.
- 2:03:46Speaker 3: Sean O'Connell Show continues on ESPN seven hundred ninety one FM.
- 2:03:52Speaker 3: We're gonna play you some Clayton Keller sound from exit
- 2:03:56Speaker 3: interviews for the Utah Mammoth. But I wanted to touch
- 2:04:00Speaker 3: on this today. You know, it's the heart of an
- 2:04:03Speaker 3: offseason now for Utah football. You've got players basically grinding lifting,
- 2:04:11Speaker 3: finishing their academic requirements. I think that school is out already.
- 2:04:16Speaker 3: I think graduation already happened. But you've got a dead period,
- 2:04:24Speaker 3: a silent period, so to speak, for players to just
- 2:04:29Speaker 3: toil away and improve themselves physically until we get to
- 2:04:34Speaker 3: fall camp. Because the transfer portal window was reduced down
- 2:04:39Speaker 3: to the single one. The ghost transfer rules have been
- 2:04:43Speaker 3: put in place, there's not a lot of personnel movement.
- 2:04:46Speaker 3: There's not gonna be a lot of personnel movement. There's
- 2:04:49Speaker 3: a couple like random, I found out I have extra eligibility,
- 2:04:54Speaker 3: and now I have a special dispensation.
- 2:04:57Speaker 4: I can go look for a spot to land.
- 2:05:00Speaker 3: And you're not going to get any meaningful additions to
- 2:05:02Speaker 3: this roster, and nobody is really So it's all about
- 2:05:06Speaker 3: off season storylines, and it's all about the Brendan Soaresby
- 2:05:09Speaker 3: type stuff and are you are you doing anything you're
- 2:05:13Speaker 3: not supposed to be doing that's going to now result
- 2:05:15Speaker 3: in a suspension of of course, injuries are a problem
- 2:05:19Speaker 3: that can even happen just in an offseason workout protocols.
- 2:05:22Speaker 5: But we'll keep our fingers crossed.
- 2:05:24Speaker 3: And none of that effects really anyone in the Big
- 2:05:26Speaker 3: Twelve because you want to see the best sample of
- 2:05:28Speaker 3: football from this conference. But ESPN is always looking for
- 2:05:33Speaker 3: things to grab our attention and in this case, to
- 2:05:37Speaker 3: upset us. So Eli Leederman, Max Olson, and Adam Rittenberg,
- 2:05:42Speaker 3: the lead college football riders at ESPN, collaborated on ranking
- 2:05:48Speaker 3: the off season for every college every Power for college
- 2:05:51Speaker 3: football team, and in the Big Twelve, they broke it
- 2:05:56Speaker 3: down by conference. In the Big Twelve, Utah come in, Well, you.
- 2:06:01Speaker 4: Know what, I'm just gonna.
- 2:06:03Speaker 3: I'm just gonna go down and James, you tell me
- 2:06:07Speaker 3: when you expect to hear me. Read Utah's name next. Okay,
- 2:06:11Speaker 3: Number one, No surprises here. Texas Tech Red Raiders, Key
- 2:06:19Speaker 3: additions Brendan Soresby, maybe question mark off outside linebacker, Tray White,
- 2:06:26Speaker 3: outside linebacker Adam Trick, Key departures, Jacob Rodriguez, David Bailey,
- 2:06:31Speaker 3: Lee Hunter. All of those guys went into the NFL. Bailey,
- 2:06:34Speaker 3: of course, was the number two overall pick. Top incoming
- 2:06:38Speaker 3: recruits outside linebacker La Damian Geiten, offensive tackle Felix Oho.
- 2:06:43Speaker 3: He the Utes were in on him temporarily, wide receiver
- 2:06:47Speaker 3: Chase Campbell. What went wrong in their offseason? Texas text
- 2:06:54Speaker 3: offseason was looking ideal until about two weeks ago when
- 2:06:56Speaker 3: the school first learned that Soresby was under n CD
- 2:07:00Speaker 3: investigation for sports betting.
- 2:07:02Speaker 5: That's a big deal.
- 2:07:04Speaker 3: Number two in the Big Twelve BYU Cougars, Key additions,
- 2:07:08Speaker 3: k dou Luave Pockey, fenwe Walker, Lions, Key departures, Jack Kelly,
- 2:07:13Speaker 3: Chase Roberts, Tanner Wall.
- 2:07:15Speaker 4: What went wrong?
- 2:07:17Speaker 5: They talk about the Parker Kingston situation there?
- 2:07:23Speaker 4: What went right?
- 2:07:24Speaker 7: L J.
- 2:07:24Speaker 3: Martin and Green to come back. Number three Arizona Wildcats.
- 2:07:29Speaker 3: What what number four are Houston Cougars?
- 2:07:32Speaker 4: Wait?
- 2:07:32Speaker 9: What?
- 2:07:34Speaker 5: Yeah? I would have expected Utah to be in three
- 2:07:38Speaker 5: or four. I'll say that number five Oklahoma State Cowboys.
- 2:07:42Speaker 4: Huh huh.
- 2:07:43Speaker 3: Key additions, Drew Mesta Maker, Caleb Williams, White Young.
- 2:07:50Speaker 4: What went wrong in Oklahoma State?
- 2:07:52Speaker 3: Well, it's one of the most ambitious roster flips we've
- 2:07:55Speaker 3: ever seen in college football. One and eleven season a
- 2:07:59Speaker 3: year ago, twenty five players are returning from.
- 2:08:03Speaker 5: Last year's roster. That was awful. By the way, Yeah,
- 2:08:08Speaker 5: number six certainly, Utah's got.
- 2:08:11Speaker 3: To be here TCU horn Frogs number seven in the
- 2:08:17Speaker 3: offseason rankings. TCU makes sense. They only lost their starting quarterback. Well,
- 2:08:24Speaker 3: they brought in another quarterback, as everyone does. They did
- 2:08:29Speaker 3: okay in the recruiting world, you know who didn't lose
- 2:08:33Speaker 3: their starter or their backup?
- 2:08:34Speaker 5: Oh? Yeah, Utah?
- 2:08:37Speaker 4: What went wrong?
- 2:08:37Speaker 3: Tc was expecting Hoober to return for his fourth years
- 2:08:40Speaker 3: the horn Frogs starter. He opted to enter the portal
- 2:08:44Speaker 3: and joined defending national champion.
- 2:08:46Speaker 5: Indiana for obvious reasons.
- 2:08:51Speaker 3: Number seven All right here we are no, actually not
- 2:08:56Speaker 3: Arizona State sun Devils. Key additions Amari Miller wide receiver,
- 2:09:01Speaker 3: Reid Harris wide receiver, linebacker, Owen long Key departures best
- 2:09:06Speaker 3: receiver in college football, well, best receiver in the Big
- 2:09:12Speaker 3: Twelve offensive tackle who ended up being a first round
- 2:09:16Speaker 3: draft picks.
- 2:09:17Speaker 6: Oh, but they have their quarterback. They have their really
- 2:09:19Speaker 6: talented quarterback. Though, no, no, they don't.
- 2:09:22Speaker 5: He's Ansu.
- 2:09:25Speaker 3: They're okay in the incoming recruiting all right, number eight
- 2:09:29Speaker 3: in the Big Twelve conference. That's where they've got Utah
- 2:09:31Speaker 3: ranked in their off season rank.
- 2:09:33Speaker 5: I got them right in the middle.
- 2:09:36Speaker 6: And listen, I'm not I'm not one that thinks that
- 2:09:40Speaker 6: they should be the favorites to win the conference. I'm
- 2:09:43Speaker 6: not sure there's anyone that feels that way, even even
- 2:09:46Speaker 6: with Brendan Soresby probably not playing for Texas Tech. You
- 2:09:50Speaker 6: gotta believe in in what they got going down there
- 2:09:52Speaker 6: in Loubwick because the proof of concept of last from
- 2:09:55Speaker 6: last year BYU deserves to be two is well.
- 2:10:00Speaker 3: But look on on paper, if so, if Soorsby is
- 2:10:03Speaker 3: out on paper, BYU is the best team in the league,
- 2:10:07Speaker 3: they probably are. Yeah, and I don't love saying that
- 2:10:11Speaker 3: on the home of the Utes, but look, Kalani Satake
- 2:10:15Speaker 3: and what they've got going on down there. They deserve
- 2:10:18Speaker 3: credit for not losing anyone important in the transfer portal.
- 2:10:23Speaker 5: Nobody, nobody of real significance left BYU in the transfer portal.
- 2:10:28Speaker 5: Zero players. How many schools can say that.
- 2:10:31Speaker 6: When you lost your defensive coordinator to Michigan and that
- 2:10:37Speaker 6: guy brought in a bunch of players and some of
- 2:10:40Speaker 6: those went to the NFL this year, but the others
- 2:10:42Speaker 6: decided to.
- 2:10:43Speaker 4: Stay at BYU.
- 2:10:45Speaker 3: You lost Jack Kelly, who was like this incredible player
- 2:10:48Speaker 3: who's now going to be I think he's going to
- 2:10:51Speaker 3: overperform his draft pick in the NFL.
- 2:10:55Speaker 4: You lose Jack Kelly to graduation.
- 2:10:57Speaker 3: And you bring in a guy who's probably gonna be
- 2:10:59Speaker 3: better than Jack Kelly in kdu luave.
- 2:11:02Speaker 4: Do you know how ridiculous that is?
- 2:11:05Speaker 3: So BYU is probably going to be the number one
- 2:11:09Speaker 3: team if Brendan Soorsby is ineligible. And by the way,
- 2:11:13Speaker 3: that's all gonna be based Texas Tech. Their whole thing
- 2:11:15Speaker 3: is gonna be based on no Brendan Soorsby. And or
- 2:11:19Speaker 3: how long does it take Will Hammond to get back
- 2:11:21Speaker 3: from the injury?
- 2:11:22Speaker 5: Right?
- 2:11:23Speaker 6: If Will Hammond's not back till October like the projections
- 2:11:27Speaker 6: are right now, that's that's gonna be tough to overcome
- 2:11:31Speaker 6: four games. You probably gonna have multiple losses there.
- 2:11:33Speaker 3: And I actually need to do some digging on this
- 2:11:36Speaker 3: because I was having a conversation yesterday. You know, like
- 2:11:40Speaker 3: everyone's on peptides right now, the ozempic thing, and there's like, uh,
- 2:11:45Speaker 3: there's one for men called retta that everyone's doing. So
- 2:11:48Speaker 3: all your old high school buddies are getting lean and
- 2:11:50Speaker 3: shredded doing these peptides.
- 2:11:53Speaker 4: I don't know what the.
- 2:11:57Speaker 3: Banned substance slash, drug testing slash whatever. I don't know
- 2:12:02Speaker 3: how it handles these peptide injections. I don't know, like there,
- 2:12:08Speaker 3: but there are peptides now that are all about strengthening
- 2:12:13Speaker 3: your tendons. There's peptides that are designed to help you
- 2:12:16Speaker 3: heal faster. There's a peptide for every dang thing under
- 2:12:18Speaker 3: the sun. Right now, if you're Texas Tech, you're calling
- 2:12:21Speaker 3: the number one peptide doctor in America and you're saying,
- 2:12:24Speaker 3: is there any way that we can get our backup
- 2:12:27Speaker 3: quarterback Will Hamm and our projected backup quarterback, we can
- 2:12:31Speaker 3: get him back sooner.
- 2:12:35Speaker 5: Anyway? Sorry for the little aside. So the on paper,
- 2:12:40Speaker 5: I get it.
- 2:12:41Speaker 3: The on paper is not hyper favorable to Utah compared
- 2:12:46Speaker 3: to Texas Tech or to BYU.
- 2:12:50Speaker 4: And other people.
- 2:12:51Speaker 3: Other teams, I should say did a really nice job
- 2:12:56Speaker 3: bringing in reinforcements based on what they were doing using.
- 2:13:00Speaker 5: And obviously there's teams that are bringing back important players.
- 2:13:06Speaker 3: We're gonna have Adam Rittenberg on as soon as we
- 2:13:09Speaker 3: can to talk all things college football, and I promise
- 2:13:12Speaker 3: you Adam Rittenberg does not think that Utah is gonna
- 2:13:15Speaker 3: be the eighth best team in the Big Twelve Conference.
- 2:13:18Speaker 3: This is an off season ranking, but the off season
- 2:13:21Speaker 3: ranking for Utah is I think being being dragged heavily
- 2:13:28Speaker 3: because of for the first time in twenty one years,
- 2:13:32Speaker 3: uncertainty around the program that people that grew to be
- 2:13:36Speaker 3: so certain of Now. I love this because it's bulletin
- 2:13:40Speaker 3: board material for Morgan Scalley. It's reinforcement for the chip
- 2:13:45Speaker 3: that is already on the shoulder for this team. It's
- 2:13:48Speaker 3: a legitimate like, Hey, we operated for a decade plus
- 2:13:55Speaker 3: on the respect of our head coach, and that's true.
- 2:14:02Speaker 3: Utah was oftentimes overestimated because people respected Kyle Whittingham so much.
- 2:14:08Speaker 3: Now They're going back to a place where they are
- 2:14:10Speaker 3: being underestimated because people don't know what they've got in
- 2:14:14Speaker 3: Morgan Scalley and Jordan Gross and Kevin mcgiven and Colton
- 2:14:18Speaker 3: Swan and all those guys.
- 2:14:23Speaker 5: This is not a who had, you know, a bad
- 2:14:25Speaker 5: offseason nationally.
- 2:14:27Speaker 3: This is a conference list that says Houston had a
- 2:14:32Speaker 3: better offseason than you.
- 2:14:34Speaker 5: Oklahoma State had a better.
- 2:14:37Speaker 3: Oklahoma State replaced their longtime head coach and are coming
- 2:14:42Speaker 3: off a one win season where they didn't even have
- 2:14:45Speaker 3: players you.
- 2:14:45Speaker 4: Want to bring back Utah. Yes, they lost some things.
- 2:14:50Speaker 3: John Henry Daily, We're gonna wish he stayed, and I
- 2:14:53Speaker 3: think he's gonna wish he stayed also, But.
- 2:14:55Speaker 5: With JHD, he probably not playing this year anyway.
- 2:14:59Speaker 3: That's why I say I think he's gonna wish he
- 2:15:00Speaker 3: states yeah, because guess what's.
- 2:15:02Speaker 5: Gonna happen to him.
- 2:15:03Speaker 3: He's gonna sit out this year or most of this
- 2:15:06Speaker 3: year at the University of Michigan, and Michigan has two
- 2:15:09Speaker 3: five stars and three four stars in that room that
- 2:15:13Speaker 3: are younger than him and have a better injury history
- 2:15:16Speaker 3: than them, who then are gonna stay in front of him,
- 2:15:20Speaker 3: and he's gonna be like, oh, what anyway, that's no
- 2:15:25Speaker 3: longer our business. Yeah, you lost some guys, and you
- 2:15:28Speaker 3: lost important members of this coaching staff. I'm never gonna
- 2:15:30Speaker 3: downplay that because Jason Beck was a loss, Lewis Powell
- 2:15:36Speaker 3: was a big loss, Jim Harding is a loss. But
- 2:15:40Speaker 3: this is a wild, wild underestimation of what you taught
- 2:15:45Speaker 3: is bringing back. And if I'm Bird Fickland and Devin
- 2:15:48Speaker 3: dan Pire especially, I'm just like, oh, we have two
- 2:15:52Speaker 3: excellent players at the most important position in college football,
- 2:15:56Speaker 3: and people are saying that we are cooked.
- 2:15:59Speaker 5: All right, let's see.
- 2:16:01Speaker 6: Yeah, you hope that it adds extra motivation just to
- 2:16:04Speaker 6: just to give some kind of to try to figure
- 2:16:08Speaker 6: out why they're being underestimated this much by their own conference.
- 2:16:14Speaker 6: It's obviously losing your obviously losing Kyle Whittingham as great
- 2:16:20Speaker 6: as much respect as people have for Morgan Scaley, that's
- 2:16:24Speaker 6: still uncertainty there.
- 2:16:25Speaker 5: How's it going to be under a new head coach?
- 2:16:27Speaker 5: That's valid.
- 2:16:30Speaker 6: Different five new offensive line starters. You lost two first
- 2:16:33Speaker 6: round picks, new offensive line coach, and Jim Harding, very
- 2:16:38Speaker 6: respected offensive line coach. You you don't have him in
- 2:16:41Speaker 6: the building.
- 2:16:41Speaker 5: Anymore. Okay, that's valid.
- 2:16:44Speaker 6: I just don't know that it's valid enough to be like, yeah,
- 2:16:47Speaker 6: Oklahoma State, like you said, TCU, who lost their starting quarterback.
- 2:16:52Speaker 3: I don't know about that. You would not hear me
- 2:16:56Speaker 3: making a case for Utah over pretty much anyone that
- 2:17:03Speaker 3: actually makes sense. But like Arizona States offseason, they lost
- 2:17:07Speaker 3: their starting quarterback who they thought they were gonna get
- 2:17:10Speaker 3: to keep, who they paid four million dollars last year.
- 2:17:13Speaker 6: Who was if not for him being injury having an
- 2:17:17Speaker 6: injury riddled season last year, we might have been talking
- 2:17:19Speaker 6: about him as the best quarterback in the conference, like
- 2:17:23Speaker 6: he's that kind of a talent, he played that way
- 2:17:26Speaker 6: that well the year before, on a on a year
- 2:17:29Speaker 6: that they that ASU won the conference, Like that's that's
- 2:17:33Speaker 6: a huge loss, and you lost the top receiver in
- 2:17:37Speaker 6: the conference to the first round of the NFL drafts.
- 2:17:39Speaker 3: I find myself in a funny spot because I'm ranting
- 2:17:42Speaker 3: against the logic behind this list, while I'm also happy
- 2:17:46Speaker 3: that this is what ESPN and other national publications and
- 2:17:50Speaker 3: this is what people are gonna do with Utah this year.
- 2:17:52Speaker 5: This is what people are gonna do with Utah until.
- 2:17:56Speaker 3: They win ten games probably they're gonna say, we don't,
- 2:18:00Speaker 3: we don't believe in you anymore.
- 2:18:01Speaker 5: We don't know, guys.
- 2:18:04Speaker 3: And the national perspective, I can tell you the national
- 2:18:07Speaker 3: perspective on this Kyle Whittingham situation was that it was
- 2:18:11Speaker 3: mismanaged badly. That is the national perspective on how the
- 2:18:15Speaker 3: exit of Kyle Whittingham was handled. I have talked with
- 2:18:18Speaker 3: enough people who cover college football for a living. We've
- 2:18:20Speaker 3: interviewed plenty of them, and the overarching like, hey, what
- 2:18:25Speaker 3: the heck was that?
- 2:18:27Speaker 5: Now affects the remaining team negatively.
- 2:18:31Speaker 3: So everybody, now, well, you gotta show me Morgan, you
- 2:18:35Speaker 3: gotta show me Devin dan Pierre that you can win
- 2:18:37Speaker 3: without Jason Beck. You gotta show me Bird Ficklin that
- 2:18:41Speaker 3: you're actually going to give us ten touchdowns again next year.
- 2:18:43Speaker 5: I love it. I love all of it because I
- 2:18:46Speaker 5: think that it.
- 2:18:47Speaker 3: Suits the culture and the personality of the university, the
- 2:18:51Speaker 3: football team, even the state a little bit better. I
- 2:18:54Speaker 3: actually think one of the things that works against BYU
- 2:18:57Speaker 3: most heavily this year is at they're gonna be doing
- 2:19:01Speaker 3: the thing that Utah did the last two seasons, patting
- 2:19:05Speaker 3: themselves on the back before they deserve it. I think
- 2:19:07Speaker 3: that that's gonna happen a lot, and I think it's
- 2:19:10Speaker 3: going to be detrimental ultimately. I think that BUYU is
- 2:19:14Speaker 3: going to roll into a game this year thinking like,
- 2:19:18Speaker 3: are you know what doesn't stink? And we're gonna win
- 2:19:20Speaker 3: this game just because we can roll our helmets out
- 2:19:22Speaker 3: there and it's not gonna work.
- 2:19:24Speaker 4: Well.
- 2:19:25Speaker 3: We have seen we saw Utah do that a couple
- 2:19:27Speaker 3: of times. We saw Utah do that like four times
- 2:19:29Speaker 3: in previous seasons. This is interesting though, that for the
- 2:19:34Speaker 3: first time in at least a decade, because Kyle Whittingham's
- 2:19:38Speaker 3: reputation really got to be where it's at now in
- 2:19:42Speaker 3: the last ten twelve years, even after he had won
- 2:19:46Speaker 3: the Sugar Bowl, when they made the leap into the
- 2:19:50Speaker 3: into the Pac twelve, there was still some like national
- 2:19:53Speaker 3: pundits that were just like, yeah, but it's Utah.
- 2:19:55Speaker 5: They're still just Utah, And it.
- 2:19:57Speaker 3: Took some time for the program and the recruit rooting
- 2:20:00Speaker 3: and everything to catch up to make Utah kind of
- 2:20:03Speaker 3: like the most popular of all of the oh I
- 2:20:07Speaker 3: also haven't thought about them in a wild teams. Utah
- 2:20:10Speaker 3: became like the power version of a Boise state. They
- 2:20:14Speaker 3: get we're universally respected. Even if people didn't know about you.
- 2:20:19Speaker 3: That status is gone. It now lives in ann Arbor, Michigan.
- 2:20:25Speaker 3: So Utah is going to have to earn every little bit,
- 2:20:29Speaker 3: every little thing moving forward.
- 2:20:32Speaker 5: And I like it. Yeah, and I I think it's fair.
- 2:20:36Speaker 6: Like we around here and on this show on our station,
- 2:20:40Speaker 6: I think we I think the consensus is that Utah
- 2:20:43Speaker 6: will probably be somewhere in the top three, if not
- 2:20:46Speaker 6: maybe win the conference.
- 2:20:47Speaker 9: Right.
- 2:20:48Speaker 5: That's that that's kind of the neighborhood that we feel
- 2:20:51Speaker 5: like they're in.
- 2:20:52Speaker 6: I can understand because even at this conference level that's
- 2:20:58Speaker 6: making this list, I can understand them not having that
- 2:21:01Speaker 6: kind of confidence in Morgan Scaley because he's unknown. Like
- 2:21:04Speaker 6: we mentioned with Jordan Gross, I left out Kevin mcgiven
- 2:21:07Speaker 6: replacing Jason Beck another unknown. Three very important coaches on
- 2:21:13Speaker 6: very important coaches, right, that left your program and the
- 2:21:17Speaker 6: most important as well at the head coaching position. I
- 2:21:20Speaker 6: understand them saying, you know what, no, there's no way
- 2:21:23Speaker 6: I can put them near the top of the like
- 2:21:26Speaker 6: in the top three of the conference. But I don't
- 2:21:28Speaker 6: know how you drop them lower than five. I just
- 2:21:30Speaker 6: really don't with how much they were able to retain.
- 2:21:33Speaker 6: And if you really did a little bit of homework
- 2:21:35Speaker 6: and saw just how good people feel about the program,
- 2:21:39Speaker 6: the people who are involved in the program feel about
- 2:21:42Speaker 6: the program right now despite all that change, it kind
- 2:21:45Speaker 6: of how can you have them lower than top five
- 2:21:49Speaker 6: in the conference in the projection, But like you said,
- 2:21:51Speaker 6: it probably will help Utah more than them being projected
- 2:21:54Speaker 6: where closer to where they ought to be.
- 2:21:56Speaker 5: Will all right, went a little bit longer than I
- 2:22:02Speaker 5: wanted to.
- 2:22:02Speaker 3: We'll take a break. Clayton Keller sound next, and we'll
- 2:22:05Speaker 3: talk with Spans for some cross talk. It's the Sean
- 2:22:07Speaker 3: O'Connell Show, ESPN seven hundred and ninety to one FM.
- 2:22:13Speaker 12: Another one.
- 2:22:17Speaker 1: You were listening to The Sean O'Connell show for the
- 2:22:20Speaker 1: Murdoch Hunting Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety two
- 2:22:24Speaker 1: to one A f am, all.
- 2:22:30Speaker 3: Right, more exit interviews from the Utah Mammoth Organization happening today.
- 2:22:34Speaker 3: Actually right after the show is when that media is
- 2:22:37Speaker 3: availability is going to happen, so we won't be able
- 2:22:39Speaker 3: to make it on time.
- 2:22:40Speaker 5: But players already did their locker.
- 2:22:42Speaker 3: Room exit interviews, and I wanted to give you sound
- 2:22:46Speaker 3: from the captain, Clayton Keller unwrapping, kind.
- 2:22:51Speaker 12: Of got a taste of you know, how hard it
- 2:22:53Speaker 12: is to get into the playoffs, Like it always comes
- 2:22:55Speaker 12: down to the very end, and and every team's fighting
- 2:22:59Speaker 12: and so hungry. So you know, going into next year, like,
- 2:23:03Speaker 12: you know, we've got a taste of it, and now,
- 2:23:05Speaker 12: like you know, that's like the standard for us, like
- 2:23:08Speaker 12: it's it's a playoffs or it's a boss Like you know,
- 2:23:12Speaker 12: now we kind of.
- 2:23:12Speaker 3: Got Clayton Keller setting a standard for next season. It's
- 2:23:26Speaker 3: gonna be massively important for this team.
- 2:23:29Speaker 5: Obviously.
- 2:23:30Speaker 3: Uh, my curiosity and I'm really interested to hear what
- 2:23:33Speaker 3: Bill Armstrong has to say after, you know, after he's
- 2:23:39Speaker 3: had some time to think about the end of the
- 2:23:42Speaker 3: Vegas series. Uh, the way to improve this team making forward,
- 2:23:48Speaker 3: how similar does it look next year to what we
- 2:23:51Speaker 3: saw this year? Because obviously there were so many really
- 2:23:53Speaker 3: good things and this is a team that very obviously
- 2:23:56Speaker 3: has a lot of skill, They've got a lot of speed.
- 2:23:59Speaker 3: The youth is on there for the next few years.
- 2:24:02Speaker 3: If we're opening a window now to Stanley Cup playoff contention,
- 2:24:06Speaker 3: Stanley Cup contention two, three, four years, are you going
- 2:24:13Speaker 3: to try to because he has said and coach bhar
- 2:24:16Speaker 3: has said, well, you know, we want physicality, we want size,
- 2:24:19Speaker 3: we want to be a team that you're a little
- 2:24:21Speaker 3: bit afraid to play against. It's not the way that
- 2:24:23Speaker 3: they were most successful this year.
- 2:24:25Speaker 5: So I'm really.
- 2:24:27Speaker 3: Curious to see what kind of tweaks are made, if any,
- 2:24:30Speaker 3: because as we have said many times already, the nucleus
- 2:24:34Speaker 3: of what the team is going to be for the
- 2:24:36Speaker 3: foreseeable future is locked in and you're not going to
- 2:24:39Speaker 3: trade any of these guys. You don't need to compile
- 2:24:44Speaker 3: a bunch of draft assets, and I don't think there's
- 2:24:48Speaker 3: gonna be the type of players that you need available
- 2:24:51Speaker 3: on the trade market to go take a big swing
- 2:24:54Speaker 3: and bring in like one of the top five defensemen
- 2:24:57Speaker 3: in the league or something like that, if that even
- 2:24:59Speaker 3: is a goal of yours right now, which I don't
- 2:25:02Speaker 3: think it is. Because they like their top defensive pairings,
- 2:25:05Speaker 3: they like their blue line, they like the numbers, especially
- 2:25:09Speaker 3: around their blue line. I think you have to figure
- 2:25:11Speaker 3: out a better backup goalie so that Veggie is not
- 2:25:14Speaker 3: constantly needed, so that he can be rested a little
- 2:25:17Speaker 3: bit more.
- 2:25:17Speaker 4: And I don't even just mean physically.
- 2:25:19Speaker 3: I mean like there's a mental strain to being the
- 2:25:21Speaker 3: guy who's got to be in there every single night
- 2:25:24Speaker 3: because you can only put your backup out there when
- 2:25:27Speaker 3: you don't expect much from the opposition. The little tweaks
- 2:25:31Speaker 3: are going to be very, very important for this franchise
- 2:25:35Speaker 3: in the offseason. I'm sure Bill Armstrong will have some
- 2:25:38Speaker 3: thoughts on it, as will Coach Bear. Will Coach Bear
- 2:25:41Speaker 3: be the guy right? Because good is sometimes the enemy
- 2:25:45Speaker 3: of great And if we all agree, and I think
- 2:25:49Speaker 3: we do, that Coach Bear has done a really good
- 2:25:51Speaker 3: job with this team. Is he the guy that the
- 2:25:55Speaker 3: franchise on the top level? Does ownership think that he
- 2:25:57Speaker 3: is a great coach? Does ownership and the team president
- 2:26:04Speaker 3: do they think that Bear Tourney is the guy that
- 2:26:08Speaker 3: can get you through two three rounds of Stanley Cup
- 2:26:12Speaker 3: playoffs and season this team into being by twenty twenty
- 2:26:16Speaker 3: seven eight a real Cup contender?
- 2:26:20Speaker 4: Don't know?
- 2:26:23Speaker 5: All right? That was the captain. Now let's Lass and Krause.
- 2:26:26Speaker 3: Who is the alternate captain and a guy that deserves
- 2:26:29Speaker 3: a little shout out for a really really impressive playoff performance,
- 2:26:33Speaker 3: especially says they'll be back.
- 2:26:37Speaker 13: You know, I say this a bunch when when I
- 2:26:40Speaker 13: view leadership, for me, it's not something that I just force.
- 2:26:44Speaker 13: I think for me, it's just being the person that
- 2:26:49Speaker 13: I am, and I think everything else kind of follows that.
- 2:26:51Speaker 13: And you know, for me, it's focusing on things like commitment, consistency,
- 2:26:58Speaker 13: hard work, you know, putting the team above myself. And
- 2:27:04Speaker 13: I think our entire team took, you know, huge strides
- 2:27:07Speaker 13: in that this year, and that's a big reason of
- 2:27:10Speaker 13: why we had success. And like I said, we've we're
- 2:27:14Speaker 13: all you know, we're all sad we're not still playing,
- 2:27:19Speaker 13: but we will learn and we will be back.
- 2:27:23Speaker 3: That last sentence might be the best way to sum
- 2:27:26Speaker 3: up the sort of overall sentiment of the complete exit
- 2:27:32Speaker 3: interviews that we heard from players. Some variation on that concept,
- 2:27:39Speaker 3: obviously in greater detail, was expressed by everyone that yeah, man,
- 2:27:43Speaker 3: this sucks, but we are going to be a team
- 2:27:48Speaker 3: to be reckoned with in the future. And Loston Kraus
- 2:27:52Speaker 3: has been around, he knows, he's seen it, He's played
- 2:27:54Speaker 3: against the best, he's played with the best. He's one
- 2:27:58Speaker 3: of those guys that many people on this team, many
- 2:28:01Speaker 3: people around this team, wanted to emphasize the fact that yes,
- 2:28:05Speaker 3: the group itself, the team, the squad together does not
- 2:28:07Speaker 3: have playoff experience as a unit, but a lot of
- 2:28:10Speaker 3: people do have playoff experience, and a lot of people
- 2:28:13Speaker 3: have been on teams with Stanley Cup winners or they've
- 2:28:16Speaker 3: been Stanley Cup winners themselves. So that collaborative effort, that
- 2:28:20Speaker 3: learning process, you have to give credit where it's due.
- 2:28:24Speaker 3: And there's the guys in this room now that are
- 2:28:27Speaker 3: capable of teaching the younger players. You know the right
- 2:28:31Speaker 3: way to do it. Experience is going to be the
- 2:28:33Speaker 3: best teacher. And now they have that playoff experience. And
- 2:28:36Speaker 3: I'm sure everyone on this roster is going to be
- 2:28:38Speaker 3: haunted by the fact that you had a bunch of leads.
- 2:28:42Speaker 3: You had three third period leads that all got squandered.
- 2:28:46Speaker 3: What was a Game four? Yeah, game four, you could
- 2:28:51Speaker 3: have gone up three to one in the series. You're
- 2:28:53Speaker 3: fifty two seconds away from going up three to one
- 2:28:57Speaker 3: in the series, and that changes everything if you can
- 2:29:00Speaker 3: do it. Speaking of people with optimistic future outlooks logan,
- 2:29:10Speaker 3: Cooley mentioned that he doesn't think there's much limit to
- 2:29:14Speaker 3: what this team can do.
- 2:29:17Speaker 7: I don't think you know, there's a limit on what
- 2:29:19Speaker 7: we can accomplish. I think we got a special group
- 2:29:22Speaker 7: in this locker room and a bunch of great leaders,
- 2:29:25Speaker 7: guys that I've been through, you know, so many different
- 2:29:29Speaker 7: playoff games, cup runs, and you know, it's joy to
- 2:29:32Speaker 7: be around these guys, and you know, excited to see
- 2:29:35Speaker 7: what we can accomplished next year.
- 2:29:37Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
- 2:29:40Speaker 3: I'm pumped as as Coolly, by the way, he was
- 2:29:42Speaker 3: his birthday yesterday. Happy birthday yesterday, Logan Cooley, twenty two
- 2:29:47Speaker 3: years old. Happy birthday today to my brother. By the way,
- 2:29:51Speaker 3: my older brother is forty five today. Shout out to
- 2:29:54Speaker 3: my brother Luke Logan Cooley. When he says I don't
- 2:30:01Speaker 3: think there's a limit to what we can accomplish. I
- 2:30:05Speaker 3: hope he has a full appreciation about what level of
- 2:30:09Speaker 3: driving force he is going to be around. This franchise
- 2:30:13Speaker 3: is accomplishment moving forward. Logan Cooley is a determinant of
- 2:30:21Speaker 3: the ceiling of this franchise, more so, I think than
- 2:30:26Speaker 3: most players. We saw a glimpse into his playoff psyche.
- 2:30:31Speaker 3: We saw a little window into his awareness of what
- 2:30:36Speaker 3: needs to be done when it's nut cutting time. In
- 2:30:40Speaker 3: the actual Stanley Cup playoffs. He is going to be
- 2:30:45Speaker 3: one of those guys that determines what the limit of
- 2:30:48Speaker 3: this franchise is. If he plays and continues to develop
- 2:30:53Speaker 3: at the clip that we have seen so far, he will.
- 2:30:57Speaker 5: Be an All Star, He'll be an Olympian.
- 2:30:59Speaker 3: He'll be guy that determines the overall path of Utah
- 2:31:05Speaker 3: Mammoth Hockey and of Team USA Hockey to some extent
- 2:31:09Speaker 3: in the next decade or so. No limit to what
- 2:31:14Speaker 3: the team can accomplish, no limit to what Logan Cooley
- 2:31:17Speaker 3: personally can accomplish if he stays healthy. It's an exciting
- 2:31:25Speaker 3: time really to be kind of at the ground level,
- 2:31:29Speaker 3: and we all got to do it together. All at
- 2:31:30Speaker 3: the same time. The bandwagon still has plenty of seats
- 2:31:34Speaker 3: on it, but it's open. It's like, hey, come on
- 2:31:37Speaker 3: in and these players man, especially the core that is
- 2:31:42Speaker 3: now extended. I'm talking about the Schmaltz, Keller, Cooley, Gunther,
- 2:31:50Speaker 3: these guys that for the next six to eight years
- 2:31:54Speaker 3: are going to be the backbone of Mammoth Hockey.
- 2:31:57Speaker 5: It's good for you, JJ Pitturk.
- 2:32:01Speaker 3: We expect more from him next year, and again, my
- 2:32:04Speaker 3: hope is that the right questions are asked during the
- 2:32:06Speaker 3: media availability with coach Behar and with Bill Armstrong and
- 2:32:11Speaker 3: company today on like Hey, who lived up to what
- 2:32:16Speaker 3: you expected?
- 2:32:18Speaker 9: Is?
- 2:32:19Speaker 3: What is the realistic goal for what you get out
- 2:32:21Speaker 3: of Paturca and Wiger and some of the acquisitions that
- 2:32:23Speaker 3: you made at the end of this season or before
- 2:32:26Speaker 3: the end of the season. I should say, we'll have
- 2:32:29Speaker 3: some of that sound before you on the show tomorrow
- 2:32:33Speaker 3: and we'll digest everything that they're saying.
- 2:32:36Speaker 5: The Drive with Spence check Its is coming up next.
- 2:32:39Speaker 3: Crosstalk is brought to you here on the Sean O'Connell
- 2:32:41Speaker 3: Show and the beginning of the Drive by our friends
- 2:32:44Speaker 3: down at Advanced Window Products eight oh one eighty five
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- 2:33:17Speaker 3: one hundred or Advanced Windows dot Com. Spence check Its
- 2:33:23Speaker 3: is right here in our frigid Broadway studio Hey, my bad.
- 2:33:30Speaker 4: I was standing out there waiting for you to go
- 2:33:32Speaker 4: to break. I've been here for like seven minutes.
- 2:33:34Speaker 5: Oh that's fine.
- 2:33:34Speaker 4: If you left you drowning.
- 2:33:36Speaker 5: No, here's what happened. We took a break when we
- 2:33:38Speaker 5: were supposed to today for the first time. Oh that's
- 2:33:41Speaker 5: not a skill I have. I'm not good at that. Yeah,
- 2:33:43Speaker 5: I've I'm bad.
- 2:33:45Speaker 4: But you were in here cooking with some Utah Mammoth
- 2:33:48Speaker 4: hot takes. I wanted to let you go.
- 2:33:49Speaker 3: I don't know how hot those takes are, but you know,
- 2:33:53Speaker 3: I it sucks because the season's over. I've already anxious
- 2:33:58Speaker 3: for next year to begin for the Utah Mammoth because
- 2:34:02Speaker 3: that forward step is going to be I think a
- 2:34:04Speaker 3: significant one, and we'll see how it plays out next year. Also,
- 2:34:11Speaker 3: I'm glad they're they're better than they were last year.
- 2:34:13Speaker 3: I'm glad they're going to be better next year. But
- 2:34:17Speaker 3: the Colorado Avalanche are going to mow down whatever stands
- 2:34:21Speaker 3: in their way this year. So even if you advance,
- 2:34:24Speaker 3: at some point you're like, all right, we're not real contender.
- 2:34:27Speaker 5: Stuff.
- 2:34:27Speaker 4: Well, and you, as I was pulling in the building
- 2:34:30Speaker 4: and you used a line that I love. Good is
- 2:34:32Speaker 4: sometimes the enemy of great. Yeah, and we talked about
- 2:34:35Speaker 4: this yesterday a little bit through the prism of what
- 2:34:39Speaker 4: Dennis Lindsay decided to do with the Al Jefferson Paul
- 2:34:42Speaker 4: Millsap Jazz and then what Danny Ainge decided to do
- 2:34:46Speaker 4: with the Rudy Gobert Donovan Mitchell Jazz, because those were
- 2:34:49Speaker 4: really good teams, and you could make an argument that
- 2:34:51Speaker 4: the Gobaart Mitchell group actually could have maybe competed for
- 2:34:53Speaker 4: a championship, but they just had so many playoff failures.
- 2:34:57Speaker 4: And how long will Bill Armstrong be patient if we
- 2:35:03Speaker 4: don't see tangible steps forward? Because next year will be
- 2:35:06Speaker 4: year six of this process they started right this was
- 2:35:10Speaker 4: year five.
- 2:35:11Speaker 5: And Bill is kind of this like it's like clairvoyant.
- 2:35:14Speaker 4: He's called it like almost every year if you listen
- 2:35:16Speaker 4: to him, it's like, yeah, this year, I think we're
- 2:35:18Speaker 4: gonna compete. Okay, this year we really should be a
- 2:35:21Speaker 4: wildcard team.
- 2:35:22Speaker 5: What's what's the.
- 2:35:23Speaker 4: Expectation next year? And if it's not met, how long
- 2:35:25Speaker 4: are you willing to be patient for a group that
- 2:35:27Speaker 4: is good and maybe not great?
- 2:35:29Speaker 3: Well, the funny thing, like I want to know what
- 2:35:31Speaker 3: Bill's thoughts on that are, Yeah, but ultimately it's Ryan
- 2:35:35Speaker 3: and Ashley sure going Okay, I got a taste of this.
- 2:35:40Speaker 3: I want something good now, I want something big. Now
- 2:35:44Speaker 3: can we make that happen? And of course the hockey
- 2:35:46Speaker 3: guy Bill Armstrong is gonna be like, well, this is
- 2:35:49Speaker 3: probably kind of the realistic.
- 2:35:51Speaker 5: Yeah, well you told me you're seven of the year.
- 2:35:54Speaker 3: Yeah, your seven of the eight year plan was that
- 2:35:56Speaker 3: we should be at least into the second round and
- 2:35:59Speaker 3: maybe another first round exit. I need to change right now.
- 2:36:03Speaker 3: And that's going to be interesting to see how that
- 2:36:05Speaker 3: dynamic develops and plays out.
- 2:36:06Speaker 4: Yeah, I wonder because it's interesting to consider. Ryan, of course,
- 2:36:10Speaker 4: is an admitted basketball guy. Talks about it all the time,
- 2:36:13Speaker 4: Like when he had an ownership stake in RSL soccer,
- 2:36:16Speaker 4: fans like you're gonna like showed up to a game,
- 2:36:20Speaker 4: do you want to make a trade, and he's like, well,
- 2:36:22Speaker 4: his his bandwidth was on basketball, and then once the
- 2:36:25Speaker 4: hockey thing became a reality, he just had to exit
- 2:36:28Speaker 4: stage left from soccer because he had too much on
- 2:36:30Speaker 4: his plate. So the reason I bring it up is
- 2:36:34Speaker 4: there's mixed messaging about how involved he is on the
- 2:36:37Speaker 4: basketball side because he uses language like Austin has final
- 2:36:42Speaker 4: recommendation to me. Most owners in the NBA just hire
- 2:36:47Speaker 4: basketball people and say, okay, go to your job. And honestly,
- 2:36:50Speaker 4: the most successful ones absolutely do that. So I've never
- 2:36:55Speaker 4: heard Ryan say like, no, Austin's running the thing or
- 2:36:58Speaker 4: Danny's running thing. It's always like they have final recommendation
- 2:37:01Speaker 4: to me. And what if We're sitting there on draft
- 2:37:05Speaker 4: night and Austin wants Darren Peterson and Danny wants aj
- 2:37:09Speaker 4: Debonsa and they look at Ryan like, is it his call?
- 2:37:12Speaker 5: It sounds like it is, But are we saying that
- 2:37:16Speaker 5: Ryan Smith is Jerry Jones in this thing? Absolutely?
- 2:37:18Speaker 4: I don't know. Look awesome now. Look look he doesn't
- 2:37:21Speaker 4: even run from it. It's the language he uses when
- 2:37:24Speaker 4: discussing his basketball ops. The question I have is, there's
- 2:37:27Speaker 4: no way Ryan knows. There's just no way. Having a
- 2:37:30Speaker 4: million of what Bill Armstrong and his staff knows, it
- 2:37:32Speaker 4: can't be like, hey, I found a winger in Czechoslovakia
- 2:37:35Speaker 4: that I want to sign next week.
- 2:37:36Speaker 3: There's no Yeah, there's no way that's happening in hockey.
- 2:37:38Speaker 3: If that's happened in basketball, it's not happening in hockey.
- 2:37:41Speaker 3: But I mean, look, owners, they say, you have the
- 2:37:46Speaker 3: luxury when you're an owner to be like, I don't
- 2:37:49Speaker 3: care how you get me the result.
- 2:37:51Speaker 5: Get me the result. And they're like, well, sir, it's
- 2:37:54Speaker 5: not even like it's not even possible to get that
- 2:37:56Speaker 5: result right now? Do it anyway? Yeah, that's what owners
- 2:38:00Speaker 5: to do.
- 2:38:00Speaker 4: Look, the bottom line is you own the team, you
- 2:38:02Speaker 4: get to do whatever you want to do.
- 2:38:03Speaker 5: I mean, I shall want a team so bad.
- 2:38:06Speaker 4: Eleven to two baby at midday radio salary right around
- 2:38:08Speaker 4: the corner. Maybe if we combine our net worth. Nope,
- 2:38:13Speaker 4: prices are really high these days. You know what we
- 2:38:15Speaker 4: could buy, like.
- 2:38:18Speaker 5: An AAU hockey team. I don't think we could even
- 2:38:21Speaker 5: do that. Prices are pretty high. We could buy the
- 2:38:23Speaker 5: Mighty Ducks.
- 2:38:24Speaker 4: Let's combine our resources and agreed to donate the sticks
- 2:38:27Speaker 4: next year for the right to make a decision out
- 2:38:30Speaker 4: of trade.
- 2:38:31Speaker 5: Won't happen.
- 2:38:32Speaker 4: Well, they probably can handle the money needed for sticks anyway.
- 2:38:37Speaker 4: I do wonder if the hockey success has mitigated the
- 2:38:41Speaker 4: basketball failures for Ryan a little bit.
- 2:38:43Speaker 5: I wonder if he feels a.
- 2:38:44Speaker 4: Little bit better about his entire project because the hockey
- 2:38:48Speaker 4: team has been able to improve leaps and bounds while
- 2:38:51Speaker 4: we're still waiting to see what the basketball team is
- 2:38:53Speaker 4: going to look like.
- 2:38:53Speaker 5: I think if it were me, that would be an
- 2:38:56Speaker 5: absolute yes.
- 2:38:57Speaker 3: Yeah, because if all you're holding on to is like
- 2:39:00Speaker 3: a losing anything bad feeling.
- 2:39:04Speaker 5: Yeah, I will say this about Ryan. It was interesting.
- 2:39:08Speaker 4: I went down to the I think it was the
- 2:39:09Speaker 4: second to last game of the season, it was the
- 2:39:11Speaker 4: Denver game, and was able to spend about twenty minutes
- 2:39:14Speaker 4: with him. And the coolest thing he said to me
- 2:39:17Speaker 4: that I have never heard him say this publicly because
- 2:39:20Speaker 4: I said to him, I'm like, look, are you having
- 2:39:21Speaker 4: any fun?
- 2:39:22Speaker 8: You know?
- 2:39:22Speaker 4: Because we were talking about the tanking thing and how
- 2:39:24Speaker 4: frustrated he was with a fine and now he's talking
- 2:39:27Speaker 4: to Adam and the border governors about what they can
- 2:39:30Speaker 4: do to kind of curttail this. And he could tell
- 2:39:32Speaker 4: it was stressful on him because he's a basketball guy
- 2:39:35Speaker 4: who wants to see this team get better. And I say,
- 2:39:37Speaker 4: look between the hockey stuff and this bat, like, are
- 2:39:40Speaker 4: you enjoying this? And he said, I was raised my
- 2:39:44Speaker 4: parents got divorced, my wife was raised in a one
- 2:39:46Speaker 4: bedroom apartment in Las Vegas.
- 2:39:48Speaker 5: Like we had nothing. This is awesome. He's like, I'm
- 2:39:51Speaker 5: having so much fun.
- 2:39:52Speaker 4: And I was relieved to hear that because I think,
- 2:39:55Speaker 4: you know, like Jim Dolan, for instance, his dad, Chuck Dolan,
- 2:39:58Speaker 4: brought cable television to the Or East, and instead of
- 2:40:01Speaker 4: giving his children money via inheritance, he said, what business
- 2:40:05Speaker 4: do you want? And Jim said, I want the garden,
- 2:40:08Speaker 4: so it was bought for him. And he just seems miserable.
- 2:40:12Speaker 4: I don't think he enjoys any of it. All he
- 2:40:14Speaker 4: wants to do is play kazoo for his dumb band
- 2:40:16Speaker 4: on the That's what he enjoys.
- 2:40:17Speaker 5: That's all he wants to do.
- 2:40:18Speaker 4: Bill spears everywhere and open for the Eagles because he
- 2:40:21Speaker 4: agrees to not take money to do it.
- 2:40:23Speaker 5: So like, fine, we don't have to pay an opener.
- 2:40:25Speaker 4: You can play your dopey kazoo and your Fedora on stage,
- 2:40:28Speaker 4: you moron. Like he's miserable, and Ryan seems like he's
- 2:40:32Speaker 4: genuinely enjoying himself.
- 2:40:33Speaker 5: So that's kind of a breath of fresh air.
- 2:40:34Speaker 3: And I think it matters to the I think it
- 2:40:36Speaker 3: matters to Ryan, and it's smith that like other people
- 2:40:39Speaker 3: are enjoying this process too. He wants fandom for these
- 2:40:43Speaker 3: teams and maybe that's a business proposition in some ways,
- 2:40:47Speaker 3: it's obviously said it is, but like he.
- 2:40:49Speaker 4: Wants people to enjoy this. Yeah, and that's pretty cool anyway.
- 2:40:54Speaker 4: And last thing, I was talking to a and look,
- 2:40:57Speaker 4: I know the deal, Like he's also in this because
- 2:40:59Speaker 4: he got a billion dollars from the state and this
- 2:41:01Speaker 4: is there will never be a generation of Ryan Smith's
- 2:41:06Speaker 4: posterity that has to work ever. Again, yes, this is capitalism.
- 2:41:09Speaker 4: But I was talking to a really high ranking official
- 2:41:13Speaker 4: for the Smith Entertainment Group and I said, Look, what's
- 2:41:15Speaker 4: it like to work for him? Said, it's awesome. He said,
- 2:41:19Speaker 4: So this guy has two sons. One plays high school ball,
- 2:41:22Speaker 4: the other plays AAU. Said last year, I didn't miss
- 2:41:25Speaker 4: one game for either of my children because I would
- 2:41:28Speaker 4: say to him, like, dude, we've got an AAU trip
- 2:41:31Speaker 4: to Vegas this weekend, Like is it cool if I
- 2:41:33Speaker 4: And he said, oh, don't miss anything that your kids
- 2:41:37Speaker 4: are doing. So look, is it propaganda? Is it just
- 2:41:41Speaker 4: like messaging? I don't know, but people seem to like
- 2:41:44Speaker 4: working for him.
- 2:41:48Speaker 3: I think the team itself has been nothing but impressed
- 2:41:53Speaker 3: and complimentary of the process of moving from Arizona to Utah. Yeah,
- 2:41:59Speaker 3: and pursuing their goal together now with this community in
- 2:42:02Speaker 3: a new practice facility. There's a lot of really really
- 2:42:05Speaker 3: good things happening. Unfortunately the season is over. We'll give
- 2:42:09Speaker 3: you some sound. We'll talk about it tomorrow. Bill Armstrong
- 2:42:12Speaker 3: coach Barrett going to address the media today. Spence check
- 2:42:15Speaker 3: its and the Drive is next right here on ESPN
- 2:42:18Speaker 3: seven hundred and ninety two ONEFM.