Utah Jazz vs New York Knicks Post Game | A Jazz reality check | Hoops Nerd Show

Utah Jazz vs New York Knicks Post Game | A Jazz reality check | Hoops Nerd Show

Absolutely blasted by the Knicks. Let’s talk about it. What does it mean? It’s the Hoopser Show. [Music] All right, guys. Before we start, if you’re new here, make sure you like the video, subscribe to the channel, and we’re also going to give [ __ ] give a Oh, got to be careful. We got to give a shout out to our sponsor, Prize Pix, who are kind enough to support the channel. Use promo code Hoops Nerd. When you play $5, get $50 instantly. Price Pix is the best place to win cash while watching sports. The app is really easy to use to make a lineup. All you have to do is pick more or less on a few player stats. You can play prize picks in over 40 states, including Utah, California, and Texas. Best of all, prize picks will give you $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup. Win or lose, you’ll get 50 bucks in lineups. Basketball season is here, and there’s no better time to get in. Just use promo code hoops nerd and download the app now. That’s one word, hoops nerd. Price picks. It’s good to be right now. I should have told you you should have picked the under today if you were doing the prize picks. That was the easiest uh pick today. I did not have time. But guess what? The prize picks is fun. Go check it out. Be responsible and use promo code hoopserd. I would really appreciate it. All right, so let’s get into this. You guys, we had the Jazz yesterday put everything in jeopardy by beating the Brooklyn Nets. Utah’s front office and owner have not seemed to understand how important this this draft is, how good this draft is, and how precarious the position they are now in is. It’s not great, guys. It’s tough. And you know, yes, the Jazz get beat today. And I know there’s people that are like, “Well, the Jazz lost. Why aren’t you happy?” Well, this was a scheduled loss. This was a back end of a back-to-back on the road. The Jazz have not been very good on the road. Uh, shout out to the Boston Celtics who couldn’t beat this Jazz team in Boston. Pathetic. Uh, but at least it is a loss. I guess the Jazz could have won this game. But I will say that this type of game where Utah gets just absolutely destroyed by the New York Knicks, this game was over in the second quarter. It it might not even been the second quarter when this game was over. Utah was down by like 23 to like three to start the game. There was at no point this Utah Jazz team was in this game. And it is a good reminder and I hope Ryan Smith was was watching although I doubt it. I don’t know if Ryan even has league pass and watches anyone other than the Jazz. And does he watch all the Jazz games? Did he watch tonight? Because you and I did and it was bad. It was really bad. Utah was down like 23-3 and I’m telling you right now, Ryan and Austin apparently think the Jazz are closer to a playin team than other people think. Well, I’m telling you right now, right now, if the Utah Jazz were playoff competitive, I don’t care that this was a back end of a back-to back on the road. Playoff competitive teams don’t go down 23 to zero to start. Right, Wiggle? Right. The Jazz aren’t there yet. It’s not to say that they don’t have good players. Keonte George is looking like a future star. We know that Lowry Markin is a very good borderline all-star. He’s not an all-star. Tonight was just another example of that and we’ve got some things to talk about with that. But they are on against bad teams. They can beat the bad teams. We saw that yesterday. They can beat Brooklyn or they can beat average teams who play poorly, right? Or even like the Rockets. They beat the Rockets who played really badly and Utah beat them at home. were barely able to eek out a win against them, right? So, it’s not like the Jazz can’t get some of these wins and it’s not like Lowry Markin hasn’t had a good season, but the Jazz aren’t there yet. The New York Knicks were one crazy bucket away from Hallebertton to being in the finals and Utah had at no point any resemblance of competitiveness against this Knicks team. It’s just a reality. Uh the Knicks are very good. Speaking of the Knicks, uh they were pretty much full health today, it looks like. And they looked like it. They just blasted Utah. Uh Raquel Bridges. Let’s see. Some of these guys didn’t even have to play. I mean, they didn’t even have to play their starters more than like 20 something minutes. They did play Jaylen Brunson for 30 and he annihilated Utah. Just absolutely took him out to the woodshed and just showed them what like a good team actually looks like. Towns was great. Brunson, great. Bridges, uh, only played 19, but he was solid. It’s funny, Bridges is like the third or fourth best player on this team, and Utah tried to trade for him and called it big game hunting. What is this front office doing? What is this Utah Jazz front office? It’s crazy, guys. I mean, the fact they tried to trade for Bridges is wild. If that I mean, all reports are that that was a more serious thing than we realize. That was a Ryan Smith thing for sure. And on this Knicks team, he played 19 minutes. I mean, he was fine, but of all these players, that’s the one the Jazz went for for the big game hunting. Are you serious? And I don’t I haven’t heard anything, you know, about the Jazz and Giannis. But you nothing makes sense, guys. I mean, last season, thank goodness, they did tank and they did fully tank, which was good, except for some games at the start of the season, but uh they did do a good job last year. They ended up with the best pick in uh lottery odds and ended up with the fifth pick, got Ace Bailey. We all know how that went. Uh anyways, let’s talk about the Jazz, guys. I have to say this Lowry Markin season is feeling very, very fool’s gold to me a little bit. It’s against a good team tonight in the New York Knicks. And this is what Lowry does. Five for 13, two for six from three, nine rebounds, 18 points. I mean, solid stuff, but Markin’s being paid. Uh, like, and I know everyone gets mad at me for, but I’m sorry. This is just the reality. The idea that Lowry Markin wouldn’t be tradable, that the Jazz are like wanting to build around Markin and actually make trades to like add to this kind of wild to me because I don’t first off I don’t know who they’re trading for. Um, that matches salary. Like if you go look at the Jazz salary structure, Markin by far makes the most money and then the next closest you got players making like 14. So I just, in fact, let’s just go to it. Utah Jazz salaries. Um, let’s go to basketball reference right here. Utah Jazz team payroll. So, Lowry Markin makes 46. The next closest is Yousef Nerkage. Utah has to match salaries if they’re going to trade to add someone to this team. So, what makes me so confused with this Jazz team is nothing makes sense right now with what they’re doing. What makes sense for the Jazz is to trade off players like Sim Mcky, like Ysef Nerkich, like Kyle Ander. I mean, the top three money makers are Markinan, Nerkich, and Anderson. And these salaries do fall off, but then Utah is keeping um Walker Kesler on the books so that they can potentially get someone in free agency and uh then resign Walker Kesler and go over the cap. But if Utah doesn’t I mean I top available NBA free agents. Let’s just do this together. This is just I don’t care. Utah lost by 30. I’m grateful that everyone’s watching. Let’s Let’s go on an adventure together. 2025 free agency tracker. Um let’s see. Let’s go back. Um does Spot Track have one that’s good? Let’s see. I love Spot Track, by the way. 2026 NBA free agents. Thank you, Spot Track. You’re the best. Uh, all teams 2026, all positions. All right, we’re back. My stupid internet drop. I thought we were over this. Good grief. Okay, so 2026 free agents. I guess you can go for LeBron James. Are we all back? Good. Uh, I guess guess ready for for uh Utah to sign Trey Young. The the Hawks are better without Trey Young. watch the Jazz sign Trey Young. I would lose my mind. Ryan Smith, I bet you, has texted Danny and Austin about it. Hey guys, have you seen Trey Young? Have you heard of Trey Young? Went to an All-Star game. He like the level of understanding of the NBA with with with um with Ryan Smith right now. I have all doubts now that he understands even some of the simplest things. I really do. I don’t think he gets it at all. I don’t think he gets it at all, guys. I’m actually extremely worried. Uh, Zack Lavine, does anyone want to bring in Zack Lavine through free agency? James Harden. Uh, anyone interested in that? CJ McCollum, he was a throwin playing on Washington right now. They can’t win a game. Chris Middleton, pretty washed. I guess the Jazz could go out after Chrisap’s Porzingis. They were interested in him before. So maybe Porzingis, but why would you resign uh Walker Kesler if you go out and give 20 to 30 million to Chrisaps Porzingis? Uh Hartinstein. Maybe that’s actually an interesting one, but that’s a club option. So not Let’s see. I’m going to open this club option. Yeah. So, they’re not giving up Hartinstein. Sorry. Uh, Andrew Wiggins, is that moving the needle very much for you guys? Tobias Harris, Utah could use Tobias Harris in salaries if they did a Detroit trade, but that’s a throwin. That’s filler. Are you signing Tobias Harris? And is that changing anything? No. Fred Van Vleet? Probably not. But that’s a player option with him coming off a severe injury. He’s picking that up. Draymond Green. Does anyone want Draymond Green? He’s probably picking up his player option. So, you’re looking at something like Anthony Simons, the return of John Collins, Terry Roier, who’s in gambling trouble. Price picks $5 for 50. Use promo code hoopster. Uh, does Harrison Do you see what I’m telling you here? The way that Utah is going to make things work better is through the draft and through potentially trading for some sort of salary filler to get more picks, right? Like that’s what it is. There is no such thing as like free agency anymore. It is all through trade. So maybe there’s some sort of move out there that you can make that, you know, like there’s some guys out here that might fill gaps. Like Mitchell Robinson is actually solid, but I don’t, you know, 15 million for Mitchell Robinson. Austin Reeves is player option. He’s going to he’s going to turn this down. You can bet that cuz he’s going to get paid. Uh, but guys, you go through here and there’s like lots of like middle of the road players, you know? I don’t know. This is the point. Like, we already have George Nyang, so I don’t know, guys. It’s you want to fill your team with draft assets and Utah is absolutely ruining it. Yes, they lost the game today, but the the damage was done yesterday. This was a scheduled loss because the Utah Jazz are not a very good basketball team right now. They can beat up bad teams and they can be close to beating middle of the road teams at home. On the road, not so much. And so that’s where we’re at. And that’s why if I’m the Jazz and I’m building around Lowry Markin, that’s fine. But you need to start making sure that you lose more of these games if you are keeping Lowry Markin. That is it. That is that is how you do it. Marketing needs to have some sort of back spasm happen right away because Utah does not own their pick. And we’ve talked about this incessantly. They do not own their pick unless they’re bottom eight. Yes, Dallas is playing better. Yes, Charlotte won today, but guess what? It does not matter if these teams win if Utah is outpacing them in wins. Utah is at 8 and4. They have two games to catch up to the Dallas Mavericks to just be where they’re at in and Charlotte. Utah plays Oklahoma City. They are not going to win that game. But guess what? That still doesn’t catch them up to these guys. you are hoping. And then guess what? Utah plays Dallas soon. I better not see Lowry Markin play against the Dallas Mavericks when they play them. Let’s go look that up. Utah Jazz uh what’s it called? Utah Jazz schedule. So Utah plays, let’s see here. Utah plays the Thunder on Sunday. They then play the Grizzlies who look pretty good. Uh Cedric Coward has kind of dipped, but he played well today. They seem to be figuring it out. Zack Edy looks awesome. Uh Mavericks, Utah has to lose these two games, guys. There is no doubt if they win one of these games, that is just terrible team management. Utah has to lose to the Grizzlies. Has to lose to the Mavericks. has to capital H A S T O has to if they do not it is really very unlikely that they are going to get to where they want to be and I’m not kidding every single one of these losses matters and when you consider last year and I got reminded of some of these things on Twitter because people seem to forget people seem to give me a hard time for telling people that it’s important to lose these games. For everyone that tells you like, “Oh, the Jazz will lose. Chill. Calm down. Calm down. The Jazz.” Well, guess what? Last year when the Jazz tanked harder than everyone, and that was trying to keep Larry Markin, apparently Ryan just liked Cooper Flag. I got things to say that I got to keep to myself, but he wanted Cooper Flag. And apparently anyone else wasn’t good enough for the Jazz. Don’t know why that is, but wanted Cooper flag doesn’t win it. Throws a tantrum, hissyphit, apparently talks to some rando on the street. I should share that tweet, by the way. It’s actually pretty funny now when you look back at it, but some rando on the tweet that was on the street that was disappointed and then goes back and says, “The goal is still there.” Well, guess what? The goal apparently changed because he just wanted to win games and probably get more people to the stadium and buy more tickets. I don’t know. But here’s the thing. Utah has to do something. They are not, if they do not keep this pick, it is absolutely devastating. It is beyond devastating. And they do not understand apparently the gravity of this. And like I was saying, back to what I was saying, every single one of these things matters because even last year, like I was saying, when they were tanking hard hard, they tied with the Wizards at the end of the year. They were tied going to lose the fifth spot, the first spot in the lottery odds. that is ensuring them the fifth spot unless the Wizards Bub Carrington hits the game winner. They wouldn’t have got it. So last year when they were tanking harder than they are now, they still didn’t ensure it completely. They got lucky. Really lucky. And people have the gall to say that Utah like just be fine with it. It’s okay. Don’t worry. Oh, last year they barely got it and they were tanking hard and this year they’re just treating it like it’ll just work out. It’s like me in geometry in high school when I turned around and had to repeat it cuz I said, “Oh, it’ll work out.” No, it did not work out. I had to do it again. It sucked a lot. You need to do your homework. Okay, that was a bad idea by me and what the Jazz are doing is very bad now. It is hard to make this up. Have we already forgotten what happened to the two seasons before last season? Utah did this same dumb strategy deciding that just Ryan Smith just wanting to win because it feels good and then they ended up with the ninth and tth picks because they weren’t able to make up the ground and those were in drafts. I mean that one of those was the Webeyama draft but the other one wasn’t that great and they still couldn’t make up the ground. How are they going to make up the ground in this setting with multiple generational talents? Do you think that the other teams that are in front of the Jazz aren’t going to do the exact same thing? The only thing that gives me some sort of comfort with that strategy is the fact that the Clippers and the Pelicans have no incentive to be bad, but they can’t figure out how to win. And so it’s not a given. The Clippers are in absolute turmoil. Sent Chris Paul away and they still can’t figure out how to win games. They’ve only won six games and they’re trying their best. The New Orleans Pelicans are having really interesting seasons from Jeremiah Fears and Derek Queen. They can’t figure out how to win anything. Fired their coach already. There are some signs of life with the Pelicans, but Utah cannot just treat this like a given. And even if these two just eventually figure out how to win enough games to pass the Utah Jazz, that only puts Utah at seven. Now, maybe Charlotte and Dallas figure it out, but they both own their picks. Do you think at a certain point they aren’t going to just shut things down? It takes the Dallas Mavericks shutting down Cooper flag and they’re ahead of Utah just like that. So, don’t act like this can just work out. That’s what makes me annoyed is people who don’t know what they’re talking about spouting it off, forgetting the history of what’s happened just recently and also what’s going on now. You act as if some of these GMs are dumb. They’re not dumb. They Well, some of them are dumb. Joe Dumar of the New Orleans Pelicans. He is dumb. He is very dumb. But that’s why they’re three and 20. But I ain’t giving our front office any sort of credit anymore. Austin Age hasn’t proved anything to me. And and uh Ryan Smith now we’re four years in. We’re five, six years in, whatever it is. This ain’t no honeymoon phase anymore. Okay? We got a lot of evidence on this and a lot of evidence of this. The good things tend to be stadium related and moneymaking related and like experience related. So more people buy tickets, but the decisions, what are the decisions that they have made with Ryan Smith as the owner in terms of basketball strategy that have been effective and good? I thought the tr like the things that Danny A clearly did that were really good getting what he got for Donovan Mitchell. Utah already has uh Larry Markin from that which should have been traded for awesome assets but now Utah’s made it more difficult to make that happen. the Wolves trade which got you Walker Kesler although they’re bungling that I I like he’s an injured player that’s now unrestricted free a or restricted free agent. We might see someone give him a crazy offer. We’ll see. Uh but also we got the Keonte George pick from the Wolves and that miraculously has turned into a nice player. What if Keonte George wasn’t playing at the level he’s playing at? What if Keonte George didn’t take the leap this year? I’m super I’m super excited about Kee George. You all know I have been team key from the beginning. I got the receipts. In fact, I was way up on Keonte George and I actually regret deleting a certain tweet that I thought to looked pretty bad. And now I’m like, I want to unddelete said tweet. But anyways, what if he wasn’t taking a leap this year and showing how good he is? I saw it, but you know, it wasn’t a given that Keith was going to take this leap, but he did. He did, right? The Jets don’t have a lot of great basketball decisions outside of Danny A. And I’m telling you right now, anyone who was talking bad about Danny A, he was the one you should be thanking if you were pro tank. He was the one. He was the one that made sure they got to where they did. He was the one that got you Ace Bailey, right? I think Ace Bailey is going to be great. The coachability is there. And if he can figure out the handle, you know, there’s a lot of ifs, like if he can do this and if he can do that, then he turns into something really special. But at base, at bare minimum, Utah has a starting caliber, uh, you know, highlevel starter at worst. But the upside is crazy. There’s potential all-star and maybe even AllNNBA upside with Ace Bailey for sure. But we’ll see. But they don’t get that without Danny A. Everything else you’ve got to point to Ryan Smith and his inability to understand how important it is to get to the top of these drafts and every like I guess I got to do I got to teach a class on tanking? I got to somehow teach a class because it’s not just winning the draft. Anyone that tells you it’s just you didn’t win Cooper flag so it was a failure. Incorrect. That is wrong. You have lost your privilege to tweet and be believed. If you think that you are not correct. What? There are two elements to tanking. Winning the lottery is one element. Yes. And the worse you are, the more lottery balls you get, the more opportunities you get. That is absolutely part of it, but it is not 100% what it is. The other element is securing your floor. Utah, and I’ve said this, I don’t know, I probably say this every day, multiple times, tweet it. I don’t know, maybe we got to start using MySpace. Will that get the information out there? Uh, is is uh is AOL Messenger or do do I need to start doing that? Do I got to buy a billboard and put it up there? the floor is half the meaning of tanking and especially in a year when you’re you lose your pick if you’re outside of the bottom eight. But by Utah getting the number one spot come lottery night, even losing they secured the fifth pick. You can only drop four spots. So the better you are, the more secure you are where you stand. That’s part of it. And in this draft, when you go, man, this is the weirdest ad on here. When you go to the mock draft here, if you are in the bottom five, you get either Nate Aement, KA Pete, or Mikuel Brown Jr. by By the way, go look at that Mikuel Brown Jr. Louisville dunk that he had in his last games. Holy smokes. There’s a lot of people that think Kingston Flemings is top five, right? Yufu looks pretty good at Baylor. And there’s people that have Jaden Acquaintance top five because of the defense. Like defensive difference maker through the roof. Lots of people love Yaxel Landorg. Cameron Carr is shooting 43% or something like that on on pull-up threes at Baylor. An absolute lights out shooter. could be more than that. The Baylor connection. So guys, Utah has ruined their shot at getting the number one pick. Unless they start tanking right away and hard and do the work, you know, make the trade. Do what you got to do. At minimum, Utah should be trading SE Mik. What are we doing? What is What is going on? Why is SE Mcky getting any sort of play? Why? What do the Jazz gain? Why can the Jazz not trade Kyle Anderson for a can of beans? Why? And guess what? We’re going to have George Niang come back and get minutes, too. What are they doing at by this? There’s a world where Utah drops to 12. And maybe that would be uh some people love Bennett Stirts, too, by the way. He’s a guy. This draft has a lot of prospects is the moral of this story. Yes, you want to win the lottery and yes, I want to get the number one pick and take Darren Peterson. That’s who I want. In my opinion, he’s the best player. I don’t think it’s particularly close. Um Cameron Boozer I think would be great. And also Debba. Those two those two there is a little bit of question mark. Darren Peterson to me is just like if you put him next to Keonte George, Utah’s offense would be out of this world. But anyways, Utah’s got to do what they do. They Yes, if they win one of these picks, that would be great. But getting Copat or getting Native I’m People are losing in like Nate Ament is dropping. Uh I’m actually kind of disappointed the block is so low, but he does have 2.3 steals. I’m a Nate Amen believer because when I see him take the shots, I can see him taking those same shots in the NBA. They just don’t go in. So, it might be the idea of Nate Aement more than the reality. But, I don’t know. There’s something about that guy. I I you know, I kind of had it with uh there’s certain guys that I watch and I’m like, why? Like, for example, I’m really feeling vindicated with Jagor Demen. at at Brooklyn who’s shooting it really well and when I watched him I watched him actually courtside I was sitting near Danny A one at one point watching um watching Jaor Demond I was curious to see what he looked like and he looked good to me and his shots weren’t going in but I was like the form looks good the vision is good the effort is good there’s you know there’s some question marks about the defense and stuff like that but I could see it and so I’ve I’ve been feeling very good about the Jagore Demon thing. Uh Nate Ament to me is kind of the Jagor Demon of this draft where it’s like it you see it, the size is great. The measurements are great. It looks right. The shots just aren’t going in. You know, he’s assisting the ball. 2.3 steals per game is great. Great length, great size, 6’10. He’s very skinny, but uh you know, he jumps off the screen a little bit to me. And I think I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a strong like second half of the season. He just he’s a ball player. He knows how to play. I don’t know. I But the shot does eventually have to go in. We’ll see. But anyways, uh I guess let’s get into the Jazz here a little bit. Lowry Markin 5 for13. Uh you know what? Let’s do a little bit of deep dive here. Let’s go to Lowry. Li Markin. Let’s go to game log for this season. All right. I kind of want to look at like when he’s playing a good team versus a bad team. So, a bad team. Uh absolutely rocked the LA Clippers that first game against this Sacramento Kings team. They played well. Lowry goes four for 13 from three. Four for 13. Yep. Yeah. He goes eight for 10 but couldn’t shoot the three. Uh a little a little, you know, not the best percentage here. Phoenix, Utah beats them in overtime. Plays pretty well against Portland. Very good defensive team. Two for seven. Does pretty well inside. Uh where is the freaking points? But he scores 32. Wow. Oh, there we go. Duh. 10 for 19. Uh and maybe this is just proving me wrong. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. Uh, Phoenix, Utah loses. Marketing goes 6 for9 for two, four for 11 from three. Overall, 50% 33 points. The point production is crazy, but they’re losing, losing, losing. Barely win in overtime. This should have been a loss, by the way. The Jazz should have started one and and four, but you know, life is pain. uh against, let’s see, was this Charlotte? Oh, that’s right. We lost to the Charlotte Hornets. Uh at Charlotte, he goes 9 for 18 from two, three for 10 from three. It’s kind of a a little bit of a trend here. He doesn’t shoot the three well against good teams. Part of that is because he can’t pull up. It’s all catch and shoot. And so, when there’s good defense happening, it’s not working. Uh against Boston, we should have lost this game. Utah should be two losses there. This is what pisses me off. So stupid. If Utah was just like even half wit with this stuff. They’d be at the seven spot easy pushing five four. So stupid. Utah is so stupid. Our owner and our manager right now are so stupid. I swear. Why is S Mock on the team? Get him off the team. What are you doing? It’s so dumb. And yet we can’t get Taylor Hendrickx on the floor, by the way. What are we doing? We’re so stupid. Uh at Detroit loses 8 for 22 from the field. This is one of the better defensive teams in the NBA. 8 for 22 from the field, 3 for12 from three. And this is like one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. Potential like finals contender. Are you catching what I’m kind of saying here? It’s fool’s gold. And if you can get a great package for Lowry Markin, you should take it. All right. It’s not as good as the numbers are telling you. It is fool’s gold. It is snake oil. All right. And if you can fool these Detroit Pistons into trading you Assar Thompson and Tobias Harris and a pick, you should do that. You should 100% do that. Why? Because let’s go over here. Stats home right here. Uh advanced. Here we go. Utah as of right now. Oh, this is players. All right, we do this every game. Ah, switching on me. All right, here we go. Offensive rating. Number one offense in the NBA. Denver Nuggets. Where’s Utah? Well, not there. Utah’s at 20. Utah is paying Larry Larry Markin $46 million. He is the focal point of the team. His skill set is offense and Utah’s at 20. If you put all your money into an offball player who is not a good defender, just an offensive player, and you can’t be above 20, and Utah’s trying to win. Trying to win. What does Ryan Smith expect next year when they’re trying to be competitive? What is the expectation next year? How much better do you think he’s going to be? you. I’m telling you right now, the the Lowry Markin numbers are so much more a sign of how good Kee George has been than it is Lowry Markin because Keonte George is setting him up like on a silver platter and he’s just absolutely torching bad teams through the play of Keonte George and getting smoked by the good ones. Just can’t get open, can’t do anything. And because he can’t play on ball in the half court, three-point line extended, you can’t give him the ball and run a pick and roll. He can’t do it. The only thing he can do on ball is when you get him the ball uh against a mismatch in the post. But against the good teams that have size at all positions, it’s not happening. Okay, not saying Larry Markin isn’t good. And I know I sound like the big Li Markin hater. Maybe I just am. Twitter account, I should change my name to Lari Markin and Hater. He runs in transition. Well, catch and shoot threes, he’s good. He’s fine. He can’t do a pull-up three, but he can catch and shoot and he can cut well to the basket. Those are nice things. I don’t know why we think it’s okay that by the end of the contract, he’s going to be making $52 million and Utah’s going to try to be competitive next year. Ah, this is not great. Number 20 offense in the NBA and he’s your best player and his skill set is offense. Why is this not better? Right? Your big- time money should go to focal point guys. Like I would much rather pay 2030 million to Keonte George and have a lot of like five to$15 million rookies on the roster than doing this. And you know what else? If we’re not better than 20, why aren’t we giving more run to Ace Bailey? Running more actions for him to let him just figure it out because the offensive upside for him is higher is much higher. Now, the other problem with having Larry Markin be your focal point, and I guess this is just Larry Markin bash time, but I I you know, obviously the Jazz front office and owner aren’t going to watch this. Probably not. Uh, but Utah’s defense is now at 28. 28, worse than the New Orleans Pelicans at this point. Lowry Markin is playing all these games and is actually one of the top players in minutes. At what point does he get some sort of criticism from people? I’ve talked about this last time, but the Utah Jazz, Ryan Smith, Austin A, and these bozos, they are so lucky they are here in Utah and don’t get the national scrutiny. Zack Low has not the eye of Sauron. Zack Low has not gazed upon the Jazz very closely yet, but it will happen. And most likely it’ll happen at the end of the season if Utah gives their pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Because if they do, you can bet that there will be a lot of scrutiny for Utah and a lot of questions like, “What were you doing? What were you thinking? Why did you do that for a team that has the number 28 defense in the NBA after tonight and the number 20 offense and you didn’t think getting a good draft pick was important? Do you think that you’re going to go into next season and just suddenly magically get to 15 and 15? Because if you want to be a 500 team, your offense needs to be around 15 and your defense needs to be around 15. It’s not super complicated. You look at these 500 teams, the Boston Celtics, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Look at these teams. These are teams uh whose defensive ratings are not very good, but look at this. New York Knicks 14 defense and they’re a contender. So, let’s look at their offense. New York Knicks number two. So, if you don’t have if you want to be tops in the league, you better be top five and something. And that’s what the Knicks are. If you have defensive rating around here, your offense better be elite. But anyways, Milwaukee Bucks 22, Portland Trailblazers right around 500. Like, it’s not super complicated. Look at the offensive ratings here. Uh, Raptors, you right? How are the Jazz just getting into this spot magically through free agency? through the guys we talked about like you’re just gonna sign James Harden and that’s gonna somehow make things better. Clippers can’t win a game. What are we doing? And yeah, the Jazz lost tonight. I’m glad they did, but this was a scheduled loss. You don’t get credit for a loss on the back end of a backto-back on the road in New York against a top five a number two offense in the NBA. You don’t get credit for that. That’s that’s that’s the bare minimum. And what we get from this front office consistently and Ryan Smith and ownership and Austin A is bare minimum right now. They haven’t proven anything. What has Austin A proven? What has he done? What has Ryan Smith proven? What has he done? Seriously, the honeymoon’s over and I actually have to apologize. No one stood up for this guy more than me. No one stood up for him more than me. No one. I I I honestly tried to see it from their point of view. And now when I look back, I was just flat out wrong cuz they were wrong. And me trying to be the Mr. Positive and look for the bright side, I was wrong. I look stupid. I look really dumb, right? And I don’t like it when people make me look dumb and stupid when I stand up for them. Does anyone else like that? man, it’s just not good. And so, guess what? If people want to save tweets for me, do it. I don’t care. It’s just like last season when they were doing stupid things and winning stupid games and putting their number one chance at risk and I was complaining about it and somehow that’s a bad thing, I guess. Guess what? I’m happy for you guys to try to dunk on me again. If that means Utah secures a top five pick or at least a top eight and don’t lose their pick, then it was all worth it. It was all worth it because Utah will come out of this with another prospect, which they desperately need. The idea that the Jazz can have too many prospects or picks is is simple-mindedness. It is just incorrect. You are wrong. This Utah Jazz team needs more talent, more wing talent, more athleticism, more energy, more more defense. Really, if anything, Utah needs to go look at this mock draft and talk about who can play defense. That’s why Caleb Wilson, if Utah gets like four, you got to be ecstatic because I think you put Caleb Wilson in the same uh range as these other three. I think there’s four big-time prospects. Caleb Wilson. Um, there’s a lot of drafts he would have been number one. Easy. Easy. And this guy is like the stocks king. 3.3, let’s see, 1.6 blocks, 2.2 steels at 6’10 power forward. The guy is a monster. And you put him and he’s got the leadership and he’s got that dog that you want, guys. I’m telling you, I almost want Caleb Wilson over, you know, if I can’t have Darren Peterson. Uh, it’s just this is a great draft to be top four. This is a great draft to be top four. A great one. And then there’s other guys out here that might really show up. I mean, you got Leber and Fin playing like out of his mind. Look at that. 27 points. There’s just guys in this draft, guys. And so for Utah to be doing what they’re doing is just malpractice. It’s just idiotic. It’s really dumb. All this for Lowry Markin, who the ringer ranked as number 26, and that was a boost. I mean, come on. All right, let’s go back to whatever this was. Oh my gosh. I I just want um to get back to where Utah is proving that they’re going to keep their pick. Utah needs to be at five at least to secure that pick, guys. They have to. If they do that, then they’ll be okay. And how many Okay, here we go. Markin against a good team. Five for 13, two for six. We know that’s what he does. Doesn’t play very well against good teams and he’s not a good defender. So, not a surprise that he’s a minus 33. Worst on the team, by the way. Uh, S Mik, why is he on the team? Why are we playing him minutes? What does he do? One for eight, one for six, three rebounds. Uh, but you can bet he’s not losing his starting spot, right? Uh, Ysef Nerk came back and his ribs were still kind of hurting, so we’ll see how he does. But six rebounds, two steals. By the way, the Jazz have been incredibly healthy this year. I mean, Ace Bailey, they tried to pretend like he was some sort of sickness, but like I don’t know. I still don’t know if I believe that. I still don’t know. Uh, Ace Bailey, uh, you know what? This guy needs more minutes. And I don’t care what his percentages are. Even on nights where he doesn’t play particularly well, it’s still not horrible. like 38%. Yeah, not a good shooting night, but that’s like that’s the worst shooting night for a rookie playing against the New York Knicks. Pretty good to be honest. Honestly, we’re encroaching on like Paulo Bancerero numbers. Bero hasn’t improved. Two for six from three and this was a bad night, right? Five rebounds, one assist, one steal, one block. He leads the team in minutes, by the way. So, I’m happy that he got the minutes. But when he gets on the floor and I see Sim Maky never pass the ball, like, how are we giving him the leeway to take zero assists? What is that? What are we rewarding here? We’re talking about culture and trying to win. Similac doesn’t make anyone better. He’s just a shooter, which is fine. He’s been shooting it well this season. But, but what’s the point? And we get like someone was saying that Lockach was talking about um the Utah Jazz understand the importance of their pick. Do they? Cuz I’ve heard other things. I’ve heard other things. Uh anyways, Keonte George, Utah played terrible tonight and he still somehow shows just great talent. 18 points, four assists. This is one of his worst games and it’s 18 points and four assists, right? Uh seven for seven from the free throw line. I’m getting to the point where I’m surprised when his percentages aren’t good. Overall, he’s been having such a great season. Tonight’s not going to help a lot. He’s at 33%, I think, from three, but it’s just going to get better. That’s what’s crazy is Key is playing so well. He’s he’s got to get some rest, actually. Um, but you know what else would really really nice is if Utah decided that building the chemistry between Ace Bailey and Keonte George was the right thing. because they’re the ones going to be playing long-term together. Ah, Kevin Love played tonight and he shot the ball five times. The end. Isaiah Kier, four for five from the field. Actually, nice to see Kier have a bounceback game. Seven assists, 13 points. He actually played pretty darn well. Just a minus five and a blowout. So, good for Kier. He had kind of been slipping there for a little bit, but uh nice to see him improve. Uh also, he shot a three today and it looked good. Like the form looked actually solid. I was like, “Oh, that actually looks pretty decent.” If he can do that, then that’s great. Guys, I think I’m just kind of out on I I don’t know. I guess I shouldn’t make any Maybe Bryce Sens turns into something better. He did shoot the ball well in this one, but he’s a minus 17 and I just don’t know if he affects winning. I just don’t get it. Oh, wiggle. I Ke George has been our best player this year. It’s not Lowry Markin. It’s Keiante George part. And the reason you can argue that is that when Keiante George doesn’t play, what does Lowry Markin do? Nothing. Keonte George is giving Lowry a great season. What happens if we actually start building the chemistry between Key and Ace and they actually just get these reps and start figuring each other out and get comfortable? Isn’t that what we should be doing? Because they’re the future. Like honestly guys, I want the Jazz to tank their butts off this year and then next year I actually want them to to go for it. Even like I want them to tra I’m I’m tired of pretending what I Here’s what I want. Trade Larry Markin. That’s what I want. I’m just going to be honest with you guys. Trade Larry Markin. Trade Similik. Trade Kyle Anderson. Trade George Nyang. I don’t care. The future is key. Ace and potentially Walker Kesler. And if you trade Lari Markin, then you can be much more comfortable resigning Walker Kesler because you will have the the the money from ex expiring contracts from other players. That’s what I want. And then guess what? I want to add another great prospect in this next upcoming draft. And then let those guys play next year. I’m fine. I’m fine. Let them go get some free agents that fill the gaps that they need. Right. I don’t mind. Go get Chrisaps Porzingis. Why not? Who cares? But get Darren Peterson, get AJ Debonsa, get one of those guys. And that’s the team. And you just let them play together year after year after year. Let them get better and better. And guess what? They will eventually be a championship championship contending team. And you know what? one of these other picks with Minnesota, the Lakers, uh Cleveland, and the the Phoenix Suns pick, one of them is going to hit, and you’re going to have one of those hit while you have your core built. But Utah has just not built this core. They’ve been obsessed with Lowry Markin, obsessed, and it’s hurting the team. I’m sorry. It’s just reality. It’s what they need to do. It’s time. And in a weird way, this whole Giannis Ana Dumpo thing makes Larry Markin look pretty pretty interesting to some of these teams because maybe you don’t want to give as much to to Anna Dumpo who’s in his early 30s. Maybe you’d like to give a little bit less, but still a nice package to the Utah Jazz for a late 20s Lari Markin. Especially like the team that we’ve all talked about, the the the Detroit Pistons. they can get a great player to play off of of Jaylen Duran and and Cade Cunningham and that’s their trio and it’s great. The Jazz need to think twice about what they’re doing. This stuff is so dumb to think that Lowry Markin is the most important part of this team is stupid. It’s just not accurate. It’s not good team building. You are you are uh what is it? Cutting your face off to spite your nose or whatever the saying is. missing the forest for the trees. It’s dumb. It’s not the way to go. I’m sorry. I like the guy. He’s very nice. He’s a good player, but he’s not a player that you can be the focal point of a championship caliber team. It’s just not the way it works. And we don’t want to be putting our odds on like being number nine or 10 again. It didn’t work last time and why would it work this time? Uh, one thing that is Oh, Philipsky played tonight. Not a lot to say. It wasn’t like the biggest night, although he did have eight rebounds. Solid three is he’s just a very good off thebench big. And he, we do this, we say this every single night. I probably say the same thing every night. But he’s just solid. Now, he’s not a good defender. Got to figure out to be how to be a good defender. But if he can, if he can be just average, and sometimes you become a better defender when you’re surrounded by better defenders, but at least offensively, Philipowski does some nice things. Walter Clayton has now had like two or three good games in a row, and that’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. There you go. That was it. Uh, but anyways, Walter Clayton is playing really nicely. He hit three open threes in this one and I think he’s going to figure out how to be really nice. I think he is the future backup guard for this Jazz team. My dream scenario is Peterson, George, and then backup guard Walter Clayton off the bench and then they can all three play together in uh different rotations. And I just think that would be really freaking good. And then Ace Bailey at the three and and I guess if you can somehow keep Markin and just rest him the rest of the year, fine. or you know, I don’t know. But Utah has to do what they can to get into the top of this draft. They have to. You have to. If you are, if you don’t do that, it’s just such a mistake. It’s such a mistake, guys. I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you. All right, that’s all I got tonight. I’m very excited. I get to go see Nate Baretti tomorrow with Mrs. hoops nerd and we uh are going to have a nice retreat. It’s going to be really good. I thought it was going to miss a jazz game, but I am not. But I will not have a video tomorrow night, so apologies in advance, but I will be watching Nate Bargetti. Hopefully, he can be really funny. Um I think Nate Bargeti is definitely um a guy that can carry the stage and can carry a team to championship. Nate Bargeti. But anyways, um let’s let’s see what would happen in this lottery. We’ve seen what’s happened recently. It’s not been good. Ah, guys, it’s been so bad. What a frustrating season and so unnecessarily so for Utah to not be willing to make the right choices. H such a frustrating season so far. Um, and by the way, all the people that come at me on uh the games the Jazz win and like, “Why can’t you just be happy?” Well, where are you tonight? Where are you tonight? All right. If the lottery was today, Utah sits at nine. They are currently giving their pick. Got to get some new headphones. They are currently giving their pick to the Thunder and it’s the best possible pick the Thunder could hope for. Like Sam Prey’s got to be just laughing like I can’t believe these bozos, these bad front offices that can’t figure things out. Why would they do so this? It’s so dumb. All right, let’s see what would happen if the lottery was today. Utah drops to 11. Gives their pick to the Thunder. The Memphis Grizzlies get the number one pick. The Clippers jump to three. And the Thunder get the number three pick in the NBA draft. Why are we not trading with the Clippers to make them better? It helps the Jazz because the Clippers can pass up Utah. Why are we so stupid? I don’t know, guys. I got to try to be more positive, I guess. I don’t know. All right, let’s see. Let’s give a shout out to these all stars. I love you all stars and I love my members so much. You guys are the best. Let’s give a shout out to Steve Aino. Steve Stucer, it changed your thing. Uh, let him cook sturdy pots. Ezekiel Ricebe, the man from down under. The price is right. Ty Price is right. Tyson Price. I’m screwing it up. See you Lexillator Jordan the goat Bal Christian house money to hos my man Robert Hall of Fame Arcs Poetica I believe in Steve Jazz exile Austin Grant editor extraordinaire Keef for three at PG with the assist on the the saying and Patrick Aubo the connoisseur. Ah, guys, the Jazz need to figure it out and they need to do it soon cuz they’re going to put me out of out of in a a sane insane asylum. I’m going to lose my mind. Like the video, guys. Subscribe to the channel. How’s that for an hour after a blowout? And also, go to prize pics. Use promo code hoops nerd. I would appreciate it. I will talk to you

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The Utah Jazz took on the New York Knicks and were given a reality check with their level of play. There’s some

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