The Ringer NBA Show - Can the Jazz Become the Next Celtics? | The Answer

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Chris and Seerat start the pod by sharing their reactions to the Celtics' Game 3 win over the Warriors and contemplating whether Draymond Green's postgame podcasting is impacting his performance in the series. They then discuss Utah's new coaching vacancy and debate whether the Jazz can replicate the Celtics' postseason success using a similar team-building philosophy (22:30). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Seerat Sohi Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. We're not just reacting to the NBA playoffs on my podcast. We're also doing it on the Ringer NBA show and the Mismatch podcast podcast. They are coming after some of these NBA playoff games. Check it out, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights on the Ringer Podcast Network. Hello, and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. It's the answer. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm joined as always by Siritt Sohey. What's up, Syriot? Chris, I'm so excited for this episode. Me too. We're recording this on a Thursday, the night or the day after Boston took a I don't know if you call it commanding, but a 2-1 lead in their NBA finals clash with the Golden State Warriors. We'll talk a little bit about that. But we're also going to ask a big question on today's episode of The Answer, which is essentially, is Boston a model for other team's success? And we have one team in mind that might want to take some notes on how Boston has been handling themselves this season and this postseason.

But before we get into that, I thought we could talk about game three a little bit. It was a pretty, I thought it was like an awesome game, honestly. Like, despite maybe the score at certain points, in the first half and then maybe down the stretch. I just thought like, this is such a great contrast in styles between these two teams. Yeah, it was Boston totally beat up the Warriors. If we're going to get into the contrast of style, that was probably the biggest contrast to me.

It was just how physical Boston was and how just not really looking like they're playing a finals game. The Warriors were. Casual game from one particular warrior out there. Well, we'll talk about Draymond in a second. But I was wondering whether or not you've lented much credence to the idea that teams kind of like map out these finals or map out a postseason series where they're like well we have to really get up for this one and then this one might be a let down game and then we really have to get

so do you think that the warriors could essentially be looking at the totality of their experience in boston and being like all we have to do is win one maybe i think that type of up and down sort of thinking that you have about about these things kind of happens naturally and i think that we're seeing it happen with the warriors like i feel like warriors fans have been pretty much trying to figure out like which mentality this team has. Like, are they the 2015 Cavs? Or are they, like, the 2015, like, Grizzlies series? Or is it, like, 2019 versus the Raptors?

Because it's, like, I don't know. It's essentially very similar scenarios and also similar mindsets. And I think it's almost impossible to know until we're done exactly who they are in this moment. Like, they could be legitimately as unworthy as they sound in some of these press conferences. I think the press conferences are kind of driving. driving fans crazy, driving media crazy, in a way that's a little bit strange to me. Like, I get the idea of, okay, you just lost a big game, because this happened after they lost

game one too. Like, we would like to see you get up on the podium and be really, really angry about it. And we podcasted after, and we were talking about, like, whether they're being a little too casual about the fact that Horford and White are hitting all these threes and some of the other things. And it turns out after a game to blow out win, that maybe, maybe, having a calm mind to be able to tactically solve some problems and not look at this as like a, it's like this big heaping explosion that it looks like when you, when you watch back and actually try to figure out like what the Warriors could do differently. I don't know. I was at that 2019 series and they had similar vibes. Yeah. Obviously pretty like traumatic series for the Warriors

anyway because of the injuries, but still. Yeah. They had the injuries. But one thing that was, kind of consistent throughout the playoffs. Like, I think even from game one was just how they kind of assumed that they would come back every single time, right? Or, like, they'd have a bounce back game. And that's fine. And I think that they could, and they could in game four. But to me, right now, the problem is not that the Warriors haven't, like, aren't going

to be able to bounce back in game four. It's that they're going to have to win a game after that. Like, at some point in the series, they're going to have to win two games in a row. Yeah. The Celtics are 8 and 0 in the first. postseason after losses. Like they are kind of the opposite

where once they lose a game they get their shit together. I don't know. That's where I think it could be a problem. It still feels a little bit to me like they're misunderestimating the opponent. Yeah. I think that this has been one of those situations

where when there was the pile on on Steph at the end of the game yesterday, obviously like the entire Warriors, the season flashes before any Warriors fans' eyes because you're wondering whether or not this is a redux of what happened with his foot with Marcus Smart or did something like did he've heard?

a rib. It seemed like he was like grabbing in his chest a little bit. And he stays out there. And when he hobbled, like came up hobbled, I think smart got a layup on him towards the end of the game. And he basically was like, I have to come coming out of the game now. I was like, this is really pointing in the wrong direction for Golden State. It feels a little bit like when the thunder were coming up in the early 2010s. And I can't remember. I think it was like a Spur series and it was just like maybe the third of even lost the first two games but then just was like we have the skeleton key now and the skeleton key is we are bigger faster and stronger than you guys and there is an element to this series where I wonder whether or not the very very

particular brand of not so small ball that the Celtics are able to throw the warriors is a little bit confusing and I know that you kind of noticed we may have back-to-back champions who play a very specific style of basketball, right? Yeah, I feel like what Boston and the Bucks did is essentially find a way to take all the components of small ball that we really like. Speed oversize, essentially shooting and... Positional fluidity, yeah, yeah. Exactly, being able to be versatile defensively, being able to attack and transition,

you know, opening up the floor, giving, you know, superstars pretty much like the widest birth that they've ever had to create shots. The Celtics do that. And they're also really big at the same time. So I don't really know what you do with that. Like, they have kind of taken all the great stuff about small ball and also added the fact that they're just going to clobber you on the boards and they're not going to let you score in the paint because, like, Robert Williams is just going to,

by the way, Bielitsa got in that game and, like, was not really reading the scouting report before. I don't think he thought he was going to play in this series because the first thing he did was try to shoot a soft little tear-drop floater on Robert Williams, which he just sent, like, hurling down the other side of the court. One of the funnier moments in the game for me. But yeah, it's, it's just tough. It's just tough. We talked about this pretty much all season long, right?

Like, when will big ball kind of come and get its revenge? And I think we're kind of, we've, we hit that moment yesterday. Because it's not big ball, it's putting big guys in smaller bodies. Almost like, it's almost like smaller guys playing big is effectively what the Celtics are doing. I mean, they're obviously also able to throw out a closing lineup with Horacex. for new williams so it's like they're they're still able to like put together almost like classic front line but man when you watch when you watch those guys like envelop clay or envelop wiggins out there on the perimeter and step basically was like unguaritable that night on wednesday but

i just felt like like the physicality and the intensity with which boston defended was just like i don't know if there's like a solve for that aside from steff shooting 40 times game but is that is that really even to solve though. Right. I'm sure the Celtics would be like go for it. You know what I mean? Because they might just be like that will take that and then shut everything else down. That seems to be the strategy of the series. I mean, I think like we've kind of like on the on the on the on the pick and roll drop coverage, which is obviously getting a lot of attention. It is the boldest strategy possible. Sure is. It's the second most talked about aspect of this series probably. And we'll get to the first most that talks about aspect, which is about talking really. We're going to talk about talk about a guy talking.

while we talk. That's podcasting. Where we do is talk, yeah. But, no, so on the drop coverage, it's pretty much the boldest strategy that you could use to defend Steph Curry. And like that first quarter, I think, like, we talked about it

in the last podcast. They didn't really know what they were doing. And then they figured it out. Robert Williams has taken a few steps ahead. And pretty much since then, I feel like it's been kind of a winning strategy. Because, I mean, there's a number of different aspects to this. I think they,

the Warriors aren't not a team that's going to fully commit to Steph Curry high pick and roll over and over again. Okay. Sure. If you guys want. There's a size aspect to that, right? Like the teams that we've seen do this, you know, it's like Luca Donchich, it's James Hardin, it's LeBron James, like going at you over and over again. I don't know that that's something that we've ever asked, like, Kurt has ever asked Steph to do. And I don't know that a smaller guy necessarily has the stamina to do it over and over again.

as we wait for word about his health status, right? But the other aspect of it is just that they're not getting anything into paint. Like that's kind of the key that the Celtics seem to figure it out. It's like, okay, let's treat Steph and Clay, not like they're bad shooters. Let's still treat them like elite shooters. Let's treat them like we treat even like Damien Lillard. Obviously, you don't want to let it get open for three, but you're also not going to reconfigure the way you think about basketball fundamentally

because of him either, right? So, yeah, I don't know. Like, I feel like they've just gone and done the drop coverage, and Williams is a really good drop defender, and Horford is a really good drop defender. And they have on balance just done enough to be able to defend Curry, and it is just taking everything else out of the Warriors' offense. Like, in the last game, on Wednesday,

26% of the Warriors' points came in the paint, compared to 37 in their win, and in the game one loss, it was 27. So that's like a figure to watch. Just like how much as a series goes on do the Warriors get points in the paint. On the other end of the floor, like that third quarter was really interesting to me because that was a moment where it looked like, well, it took a seven point play. Yes.

I mean, the seven point play is like a weird asterisk to throw on what was a great third quarter warrior's appearance, but it was still a seven point play. It was. I'm glad personally I got to experience one. But that was really what it took for the math to start working for. stuff to just keep pulling up over and over again. But then what happened was essentially that the Warriors just couldn't get any stops on the other end because they just kept getting killed on the boards.

So if you're figuring it out on one end, then the big ball stuff is still killing you on the other. They just got completely outmaned the entire game. Like the Celtics were not only more physical than them, but they are also just, even if they weren't, they were just stronger. Like this is a series where the Warriors need to be the ones making up for their lack of size with physicality. And in game three, like, we got pretty much the opposite of that, and they got clobbered on the boards. And traditionally in their dynasty, if you want to call what we've lived through for the last 10 years of the Warriors dynasty, they have been able to rely on Draymond to do that. Yeah.

So that brings us to the other subject we wanted to discuss today, which was Draymond's role in this series. I think we're seeing, like, I don't know whether you want to call him diminished somehow, but like it's not, he's just now at like every other game kind of pace with his ability to kind of. of influence a game in the positive. He can influence the game in the negative pretty much any night he wants. Drey Mon now, and this isn't even in like a sort of referendum on like whether or not he should or shouldn't be podcasting, which I really could care less. And like it's not really any of our business. What he decides to do in a hotel room, it seems like a pretty positive way to spend his time, honestly. Who are we to talk, you know? Yeah. Dre is starting to remind me of dudes I knew in my early 20s where like you would go to a party with them.

And no matter what the party was for, it could be awake, it could be somebody's birthday, it could be somebody turning 21, it could be whatever it is. The party is about that guy. And it is about, is this guy going to show us the greatest night of our lives? And we're going to wind up at like an amusement park at 2 a.m., like sneaking in and trying to ride a roller coaster. Is he going to start crying in the middle of a room? is he going to try and take my sister home? Like, what is going to happen with this guy? And the entire party is only about, like, the volatility of this dude.

Now, I don't know. Oh, my God. You know. Yeah. And it becomes about managing his mood. Yeah. And it becomes about, like, limiting the collateral damage of his party behavior. And I'm talking strictly on the court.

Like, I'm not even talking about, Draymond, like, podcasting. I'm just saying, like, what was once, like, this super. superpower that the Warriors had, which was dream on leading the break off of a rebound, has now become like watching Jackass, where I'm like, is he going to, is he going to fall into a pool full of alligators? Like, as he brings the ball up, is he going to do a no look one-handed skip pass into the third row? Is he going to get the ball picked off by smart? Is he going to get a charge? Or is he going to do something really cool and magical in fine Clay Thompson where no one else thought he was and it's a three-pointer in transition. There's that. Obviously, he's just

playing on tilt. Part of my only distaste for what's happening right now is I actually just don't think it's fair that Draymond gets to MF refs for three hours. But like if your favorite player on your team did that, like they would definitely get tossed in two minutes. I'm not a lip reader, but it just definitely seems like what's acceptable behavior for Draymond on a basketball court is not acceptable for like 99% of the rest of the league. So to me it's like a little bit more of just like I'm a little bit salty about that. And then on top of it, we are witnessing just like this incredible peak Steph performance. And part of me just doesn't want this guy to toss it away. You know, like part of me wants him to like help Steph kind of cement this top 10 legacy to everybody's

been debating over these last couple weeks. Like where's your. head at when it comes to the Draymond debate? Um, it's actually, it's pretty much how I feel about the rest of the Warriors. I won't get into it too much because it's just like what we talked about at the top of the show. It's just like, we'll see. Like, maybe he's just being Blase and like. Is that what being Blase looks like, though? On the court.

I mean, I think he's trying to put on an image or maybe that's just how he feels. Like when he talks about like, well, you know, yesterday there was a thing of he got into it with Jake Fisher over... Yes, I saw that at the press conference. Over podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. And like he got asked a question about whether the press,

whether his podcast could be giving, giving the Celtics hints. Well, it struck me as a little, a little overly defensive. I wouldn't be worried about the tactical secrets he would be telling as much as, is, like, I think Bolton board material is kind of real, personally. And I think that if Drayman were to say something like, like he did in the press conference after game one, where he was like, we're not,

worried about those guys making that many threes again. I don't know. Dudes remember that. Yeah, no, I think there's something to it. I think there's something to it. But just, just on his whole mood in general, it all just kind of comes down to what happens in the rest of the series.

Like, maybe it's fine that he's this way. Like, maybe this is just how he processes, you know, these bad losses and stuff. He, he himself admitted that he played like shit. To me, the question becomes, I think it's pretty easy to tell early on which Dremon you're getting. like for both these games it's kind of been through and through the same guy like it hasn't been

like oh he has like a good play there and a good play here like i think in game one it was kind of obvious right away it's like oh no this is not a good dream on night and game two it was obvious it was yeah and so you know when it's that clear right in front of you um if you're steve kerr oh it's not gonna happen come on looney had a really good first half it's not going to happen unless there is like a mystery hamstring tweak it's not going to happen sure make it a mystery hamstring tweak like if you got to like protect protect the guy's ego which i mean i also think that like do we even know that draymond is somebody who would react that negatively to something like this like obviously it would hurt right but like just from a team-wide perspective yeah okay okay okay that uh just said so

much so much i i'm being completely sincere when i ask you do you think he's a little over committed to content right now like do you think that there is an extent to which he is doing certain things, creating like a maelstrom of drama around it to power, like, his ability to comment on that, thus driving eyeballs towards what he is making, which is a tried and true podcaster recipe. I guarantee you. It is, I mean, we have seen, we have seen such things work. I don't think so, honestly. Okay. You know, like, the guy can't really even, like, execute a transition pass ahead right now. I just don't know that he's, like, really working. He's not doing that for content.

Working that above. Yeah. But even when he got involved in the scrum at the end of the game where Horford fell on Steph and there was that bang bang, like kind of like there's four guys on the floor and then Draymond fouls out. And Draymond intentionally said he intentionally foued out so that he could get guys off of Steph because he heard Steph screaming. And then he just went like nuclear on all the refs or at least like one of the guys.

I think it was Courtney Kirkland who was talking to him. And I was like. you know what, this game is over, you know, and I appreciate the fact that you're coming for your guys back who's like at the bottom of an Al Horford pile. But like still, it just seemed like a ton of look at me at the end of the game when you, like, you guys just got beat by 16 in the finals. And you like that like that is the amount of points that you spotted them in the beginning of the game pretty much. Like this is not about you. This is a worry. If it's not about your, you're kind of like cult of personality. It's about like what are you guys? going to do to fix this. Yeah. I think Draymond naturally goes where the smoke is. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah, I think he would kind of be there like with or without the content creation aspect of this. It just also happens to make him like kind of perfect podcasters. Like he will be in the middle of all of it. And I think he's also just like very attuned to never actually stop saying what he actually thinks. Logan Murdoch had a future about him earlier this year. That was

literally, I think it was titled like Draymond Green has something to say, which I think as the as like the months have borne out, like that has become more and more accurate. It reminds me almost of like, because like he got booed, he got booed and there was like the fuck Draymond chance and everything right. Who will think of the children? Yeah. Other than Clay Thompson, who as far as I know is, is the father of just one, one dog at this point.

But hey, whatever. I appreciate him. Draymond also swore in front of his own child in the press comments. So, I mean, you don't have to get into one about his own. but I'm sure fuck Draymond were some of the nicer things said to Draymond by the crowd, but at the same time. But you know, in that Memphis series, like the Memphis fans start chanting, whoop that trick when they're blowing out the Warriors.

And Draymond, and yeah, he's just, he's in it. And then, hey, they went and won the series. So I respect that his energy never changes on that level, at least. Like, he's not going to be a frontrunner. Like, he will get blown out and be the exact same guy. And I think that's just kind of what we're seeing. And I think that when a team is losing, that just becomes for fans, annoying. But I don't know that it has an impact beyond that.

Like, it's justifiably annoying. That's an incredibly sophisticated way of looking at it. I mean, that sincerely. Like, I think that, like, I have, like, a little bit more of a, like, if I was a Warriors fan and this dude played like this, I would be mad. And that's justified, honestly. That's how people are sometimes. Like, sometimes the things that they do are awesome.

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So this brings us to the sort of main topic that we wanted to discuss today. I started thinking about this earlier in the week when Quinn Snyder left the jazz, so on about four days ago, it was announced that Quinn Snyder was not going to signed a new deal with the jazz. He had been in long-term contract discussions with them. They had obviously had some front office upheaval with Danny Aange coming in and taking over. They have a new ownership group there. They have Dwayne Wade playing a role in the front office. So times are changing in Utah. Quinn Snyder, after a very successful, relatively successful, rain in Utah is going to take off. And while there's still an open job in Charlotte,

I think it's widely assumed that he's going to take a year off and then be like the first coach everybody calls next season or after this coming season. And got me thinking a little bit about the way Utah has been constructed, the way Utah is constructed currently. And a few years ago when the Warriors started racking up championships, building a new Warriors was what was in vogue when it came to like team building paradigms. And the most obvious one or the most, I think, notable one was what Travis Link did or tried to do with the Hawks where he had some very clear power parallels to the Steph Clay, Drayman rules that he was filming that I think that he took some lessons from what Golden State was able to do in terms of having a very malleable roster that could play small, could play big, but had a lot of shooting and a lot of playmaking all over the court. And that he was essentially trying to do also what Golden State did, which is build around a generation of players who were going to be at the same level of contract and age-wise throughout their career for a while.

Now, obviously, the Warriors have greatly benefited from the Kevin Durants of the world and the Andrei Iwadolos of the world joining their team. But, like, that loosely and broadly is their model. So I was wondering, is there a Boston model? And I was wondering whether or not Utah would be the best test case for this Boston model because they share so many attributes with Boston in some ways. And we can go through those attributes and we can kind of talk about this. but just at first blanche, am I full of shit? No, I want to hear more. Okay.

Well, these are two teams that have been, at least in the regular season, in and around one another, in terms of what kind of net ratings they're putting up and what kind of wind tolls they're putting up in any given season. So we can go through the seasons of the last couple because I find that the presence of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gober in Utah and the presence of Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum in Boston create like basically really easy parallels.

So just running through it really quickly, 1718, Utah gets 48 wins. They wind up fifth in net rating. They have a wild second half of the season and they get to the second round of the playoffs that same season. Boston has 55 wins, number one seed, sixth in net. They lose in the conference finals. Boston's gone through much more upheaval in terms of their roster, but this core of Jason and Jalen has still been there the entire time. 1819, Utah wins 48.

They had the second best defense. They're the fourth in net rating. they lose in the first round. That same year, Boston, 49 wins. That was the second round out while Kyrie and Horford, they were injured. The following year, Utah, the 1920 season, Utah wins 44, Boston wins 48. Boston gets at the conference finals. Kind of surprisingly, Utah, also surprisingly, loses in the first round.

2021, 52 wins for Utah. Boston was terrible. Utah was the first in net rating. They still lost in the second round. And in 21, 22, Boston wins 51. Utah, even though they had like such a disappointing season, still 149 and were third net rating, they just can't do it in the postseason.

I think it's just a drop off from the, from like the season before. Because that 52 wins was in the bubble season. So it was like it was like the first seat in the West. Yes. And in some ways I would make the argument that Utah is like the ultimate bubble team. Like Utah is a team that just seemed to like really benefit from like quiet gyms and nothing but concentration on their. on their hoop.

As opposed to Utah now, which I'm sure it's just pop. Yes, exactly. It's crazy. The reverse bubble. But look, like these are two teams that have had

transformational coaches that both of them decided that they reached their kind of ceiling. Brad Stevens decided there needed to be another voice and that he was burned out on coaching.

Quinn Snyder obviously felt that he had taken Utah as far as they could. Danny Inge has been pretty public about like wanting to keep Quinn Snyder. They've got two stars who have often faced speculation from the outside

about whether or not they're compatible. Utah, obviously, a little bit more soap opera there with Donovan and Rudy's relationship being really, like, you know, on the ropes at certain points, I think it's fair to say. And they've both tried to either add young stars or younger players around these guys or bring in veterans who they feel like can take them to the next level for Utah. Obviously, the Mike Connolly's of the world for Boston, I think bringing Horford back and giving this team a little bit of veteran leadership was essential.

So in a lot of ways, they're following the same path. And as Utah decides now whether or not to break up Donovan and Rudy, what direction to go in, was Danny Ainge want to tear this down and build it back up again? And, you know, both of these teams are, I think it's fair to say, in somewhat similar situations where going to Utah and going to Boston as a free agent is, not always at the top of people's list.

I know that Boston has landed some free agents in the past, but it's a complicated place to play. Utah is a complicated place to play. It's not Miami. It's not Los Angeles. It's not New York. What do you think here? Should Utah take heart in what's happened with Boston

and maybe look for their own IMEU doka or try and like basically make another run with these guys and make tweaks in that player three through six range of their roster? Or do you think that they've kind of run out of time and this is the best possible time to sell high on these guys? Yeah, so I'm selling high point. It's going to be tough to sell high on Gobert right now, which I think kind of gives you one reason alone to try to see if there's another coach that can reimagine what those two look like on the floor together.

It seems like for the most part, they've been period. Other than now we're hearing that, you know, the jazz are open to hearing offers on Gobert. they've been pretty committed to those two at the trade deadline. I think that they were looking at shoring up their perimeter defense. And, you know, they had guys like Jeremy Grant in mind. And then they end up getting the keel and Alexander Walker, which is like definitely a downgrade. But it's a 23-year-old who has a great wingspan.

He's athletic. And he could potentially, like, he's a good second draft candidate. Nothing ever came of him in New Orleans. But things were log jam there. And he was trying to be an off-the-dribble guy when he's just kind of not. So I'm a little bit more cautiously optimistic about what he can mean for them. But beyond that, that's also a reason I think I've never really, I tried not to give them too hard of a time because I feel like they knew what their problems were.

Like if they weren't trading Gobert, it's like, yeah, obviously the perimeter defense is a problem. Obviously, you guys are too old. Obviously, you need to get younger. The transition is an issue. And in the playoffs, it kind of just became more of an issue. And now I'm just kind of really curious to see where their go from here. because there are some interesting Gobert deals, but you also look at how they looked in the postseason.

And one thing that I think that they really had in common with Boston all season long was just this sense of like stagnation, like a lack of progress, stagnation across the board. Any defense with Rea-Gobert anchoring the middle, like whatever you feel about him, just should be better. And that comes down to like Donovan Mitchell not playing as good defense as he could. and everybody else kind of aging, but also just like, you just saw the passes weren't as crisp.

Like, they were one of the best passing teams in the league in the year that they, that they, in that bubble year. And they just weren't as good, uh, this,

this year. Like, they, they've lost on the things that actually allowed them to be who they were, which is, it feels like the place that Boston got to with Brad Stevens as well, where for some reason,

like, maybe they were tired of his voice. Maybe they were tired of each other's faces. Like, whatever it could be, like, they just seemed to hit, a bit of a wall. And to me, that becomes the first thing that you need to figure out, beyond,

like, any, any trades or whatever. Like, you want to get in a coach that beyond everything else can, like, renew Donovan Mitchell's commitment to improvement. It's like, yes. One of the similarities between these two teams is actually Tatum and, and Mitchell. And, like, before Boston fans kill me for that. I would say probably more so, like, the Tatum that we got last, year in the team that we got started this year. And they're counting stats in a lot of areas are very similarly. They both took like 20.5 field goal attempts. They shoot around the same percentages from the field goal and three point line. And essentially what the difference was that Tatum is way better defensively and he figured out his playmaking in the playoffs and Mitchell essentially

combusted. And he reverted kind of back to like a version of him that, you know, we, that wouldn't and hang hanging out for the regular season for sure, right? Just going to the rim a lot less, like settling for some easy floaters. Like, you know, just trying to do everything, trying to split every double team. Like, just kind of young, reckless decisions at this point, like, he just needs to have a little bit more discipline and know that those aren't really, like, the shots that he should be taking, right? So that was kind of what happened with Boston, right? I think on some level, every player had to just tighten up the things that kind of already made them who they are.

like whether it was brown too right and and smart as well just like you know just be a little bit smarter with the basketball with those guys right and that just comes down to accountability the weird thing with this coaching search though is that we don't really know too much about who it is that like is going to provide that there's a lot of first time head coaches on this list and just like we didn't really know that about email obviously the Celtics probably you know that a little bit better i certainly have to say i didn't i know that you know that jacky wrote piece about him and like you know like there's there's a lot of like e-name mythologizing going on and rightfully so right now but i like even as like a sixers assistant under bret brown i wasn't

like e-may is the dude like you can just see such an alpha and like when you read these stories about him like telling the celtics to stop playing like such a bunch of assholes and you're like damn you just like said that to them and like a fine i mean maybe coaches say that kind of thing all the time and I don't know but like his sort of like I am the beacon of the competitive spirit of this team and you will follow me into the fog stuff is like pretty pretty illuminating and then you've got like this list of guys that Utah is considering recording to Woge and it's like Johnny Bryant from the Knicks will Hardy from the Celtics Charles Lee from the Bucks Joe Missoula from the Celtics and Alex Jensen who's already a jazz assistant plus Terry Stats and plus

Vogel and then whoever else is going to wind up starting to pop up in the mix here. you know, I mean, like, I have every, I have no reason to doubt that one of these assistants could have like a huge impact. I kind of wonder whether or not, for as much as it might be attitudinal and like having a coach come in and reshape or reinvigorate, like you said, Donovan's commitment to improvement figuring out like their defensive identity. This is a team that is paying like 51% of their cap to four guys and two of those guys are not that great. and one of those guys might be watched in Mike Conley. And the next highest player after that is Clarkson, who is essentially, I would go as far to say as maybe as a little bit of like a regular season player. Like I don't really know how often you can have Clarkson out on a winning playoff team.

You may disagree. I agree. So it's similar to the Sixers, honestly, in the sense that like the Sixers have a bunch of money tied up in players that are just pretty good. or okay or not that great. But those guys... And getting older. And getting older.

And those guys are the three through five, three through six guys where you're like, doesn't feel like the Celtics have that problem. It feels like the Celtics have their money pretty equally distributed among seven people, aside from Brown and Tatum and Horford, who are like overperforming their contracts right now, Grant Williams, Robert Williams, what have you. And that's like a really good problem for them to have right now. I don't know whether or not Utah needs a roster changeover or an attitude changeover. I think they need a little bit of both.

That roster as it stands, I mean, we saw them get picked apart. I don't really know that obviously effort makes a difference, but there's a certain point at which like you're just a little too old and a little too slow and just not that fast. And that's kind of what their perimeter defense is. and they also just don't really have, like, good perimeter communication on defense either. Like, I think the thing that the Celtics do really well is that they have a lot of guys that can talk. Like, you got Marcus Smart, you got Grant Williams, you got Robert Williams, you got Al Horford.

Like, pretty much everybody talks on that team, right? Like, they can be kind of, like, a communication hub. And for the jazz, it felt like that was pretty much just go bare. So I want to, like, definitely get, like, a strong defensive player that is on, the perimeter. Like that was probably like my number one thing right now. But it's interesting that you put it that way about Marcus Smart, Al Horford, those guys, the additional guys is because like, I almost feel like Horford and Smart are the yin and yang of like the Celtics personality right now. And thus like it's Jalen and Jason are not responsible as culture setters. That's just from the

outside like watching the games. But I almost wonder whether the jazz could use something like that where it's like Rudy and Donovan do not need to be the spokespeople and the face. They can be the faces of the franchise, but they don't need to be the culture setters, like on the court. Maybe they follow a guy who is a little bit more like, you know, like basically Chris Paul, you know, like something where it's just like a little bit more of like a reinvigoration of what they're doing there. Chris Paul to the jazz would be funny.

It would be funny on a number of levels, yeah. But if Chris Paul goes to Utah instead of Phoenix two years ago, it certainly seems like the Jazz good have won the title. Two years ago? Yeah, two years ago, yeah, probably. Not this team, though. Can I give you my case for Frank Vogel? For the Jazz?

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that when you look at this team, like they need to take like a defense creates offense type of approach. I would say Frank Vogel and a really good offensive coordinator, actually. Let me, let me just amend that slightly. Yeah. But it gets you recommitted to defense.

Like, he's not going to stand for you not playing defense. I would love for him to be able to play around. with a guy like Gobert. Or really any of these, any of these, like potential coaches, like, what if Rudy Gobert is like,

I only want to play power forward now. He's like, again? How is this happening again? But really, and any, like, creative, defensive coach,

play around with Rudy Gobert. If you look at, like, the last two years, one of the biggest problems with the jazz have just been, like, their scheme just doesn't change enough.

They're always going to, going to drop the pick and roll, which I, I get we now understand to be like the best strategy ever in basketball, thanks to Robert Williams, but you might want to have a little bit more in the bag, right? And just see what you get and see what you get when like, you know, you just get like some fresh eyes on it. Like that seems like something that the Celtics just did with with Eme, right? Um, because like when I look at a player like Mitchell and how I'd want to build around him and it seems like that's essentially the conversation.

Well, I mean, given the fact that he jumped out as soon as Quinn left and essentially it was like the coaching hire will determine my like comfort level with this franchise. It sounds like he's pulling a lot of weight in Utah right now. Yeah. I mean, he's been pulling some weight there for a while. Sure. And that'll kind of be interesting to see in the coaching search too because Johnny Bryant, who's now with the Knicks, is a former jazz assistant who is also,

who also worked like very closely with Mitchell when he was with the jazz. And I think that they, they have a very strong relationship. Also, like you hear good things about Johnny too, like beyond the fact that Donovan Mitchell likes him. So I don't know. We'll see what happens with that. But this team, as currently constructed, is way too boring to be a Donovan Mitchell team. Like, this guy came into the league and we were like, okay, this is like Flash 2.0.

Like, what is happening right now? And they were, like, they had the lowest pace in the postseason. Bottom five in, like, the turnovers that they create. Like, they play such conservative defense. And you have, like, you have a bottle rocket on your team. And I get that he's, like, not always going to do that, especially as he gets older, but like, can he do that a little bit? Like, can we get going in transition?

You know, I would like, I would like to just see a much more athletic and exciting version of this team going forward. So you want maybe Vogel to do a reverse Dantone, where it's like he only cares about defense. And then on offense, he's just like, let's roll the ball out and you guys get up and down. Yeah. Well, it's just running gun. I mean, they've been playing together long enough that they know how to play smart offense. Speaking of running gun, I think Mike D. Antony is also a candidate. What do you think about that?

Is he really? I read that name somewhere. I don't think it necessarily solves like, formenting a true defensive identity. I'm a fan of Mike Dantone. I think it would be kind of cool to see what he did with Mitchell and Gobert. I just wonder whether or not that's just kind of like run its course. I mean, as bad as it ever got with Boston that bubble year,

like it was more like trade machine people being like, should you trade Jalen, should you trade Jalen than it was. Jason and Jalen being like sniping at each other the way that Donovan and Rudy do. If I was Gobert, I'd be kind of like, I'm kind of fed up with this shit. Like I'm like a generational defender. Like I can go do a lot of good for some team. Like let me go fucking catch Lamello Lobbs, you know? Yeah, be fun.

It'd be fun. I mean, I think Miles Bridges would be a really interesting running mate for Donovan Mitchell. Maybe that works. Maybe that trade works. I mean, I think you'd have to like sweet it a little bit. I think it would be Miles Bridges and something else. I don't know if it's a Hayward homecoming. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things that this team has in common is that they both lost Gordon Hayward.

That's right. Yeah. It's the thread. It's the thread. One trade, like the Bulls are, the Bulls have expressed interest. So this is a weird thing that I've been thinking about. All the teams that have expressed interest in Gobert would then turn the jazz into the version of the team that they already are that wants Gobert. You know what I mean? Like, the Bulls have interest in Gobert. And like, that would probably, probably involve having Butchovich in the deal. And that, to me, essentially, just like, you're, you're just exchanging problems and you're exchanging a defensive problem and an offensive problem. And then you're going to look around and be like, hey, we can use some rim protection. But the Bulls are probably like, let's say we re-sign Zach Levine, we've got Alex Caruso, we've got DeMardo Rosen, we've got Lonzo Ball. Like, we'd love to have a Rudy Gober just mopping up on aisle five. Oh, yeah. For the Bulls, it makes a ton of sense. Because they just, like, they're filled to the brim with the scoring stuff now, right? It's just a matter of

what the jazz would want back from them. Who else is out there, Toronto or Atlanta, right? Yeah, Toronto. Yeah. I personally would love to see Lonzo Ball with the jazz. I think that would be super fun. Lonzo and Mike D. Antony. Yeah.

Well, I'd also love to see LeVar in Salt Lake City and see how that works out. LeVar is going to hang out in Charlotte. I feel like Atlanta has been in the most early, somewhat dubious trade rumors. and they're the most interesting team. Maybe we can do an episode on them soon because they're kind of like self-perception versus what they actually are right now and the weird like the inflation that happened with Atlanta

after that conference finals run. It's Portland-esque maybe is going to be really interesting to track through the soft season. I also think that they have like an owner who's like, can we be good now, please? Yeah, they want to be good for sure. Do you like any deals for the Hawks? The one that I think would be fascinating

would be Benzman. Simmons. Oh, okay. Okay. So the opposite of Rudy Gober. Yeah, but it would be, I mean, not only for the sort of, uh, the narrative richness of Ben Simmons going to Atlanta, but also just like, I think it would be fascinating to see what Brooklyn got back in return for that. You really want like Clint Capella. He'd be good in Brooklyn if he can, you know, depending on how healthy it is. That's an episode too. Ben Simmons. Like, what is Ben Simmons? Like, what is Ben Simmons? I think you and I, we, we deserve to not have to talk about Ben Simmons until until it's like officially. the end of the season. You're absolutely right. Remember that we had to do, we did like 12 episodes about Ben Simmons. That's so true.

I almost, I felt like old neurons like kind of starting to fire. That's right. Okay, so we've decided that Utah should try to learn some things from Boston. And we've decided that it's okay if Draymond podcast, he just has to play better. Yeah,

I think that's, I think that's where we're at. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot of things that players have done during the finals that were much more taxing than podcasting. I can say as a podcaster. Ain't that bad, guys.

We'll be back next Friday. Thanks to Chris Sutton for producing us to everybody else. Take care and enjoy the finals.