Howard Beck wouldn’t be surprised if the Utah Jazz rebuild took a step backwards
[Music] H Olson Scott Gerard 975 the KSL Sports Zone final hour of the program let’s talk a little NBA Howard Beck senior NBA rider for the ringer kind enough to carve out a few moments for us on a day where looks like JJ reck is now the new head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers Howard you’re initial news first off thanks for hanging out with us we really appreciate it but your initial thoughts uh with JJ taking over the lake show gentlemen good to be back thanks for having me um I’m intrigued you know I I I think it’s a really interesting hire and look there’s no no one in the league and I don’t think anybody who follows the NBA or follows NBA media listens to NBA podcasts I don’t think anybody would uh dispute the fact that JJ reic is a really really sharp basketball mind and his his ability to break down the game to uh explain the game to think the game I I I think is as as high as you’re going to find and you know there are guys who when you when as players you can you can see it you can hear it in the way that they analyze the game and and and they check all the boxes right um You you want somebody as a head coach who can communicate who obviously has the xnos acumen who has the kind of forceful personality that can can rally uh a group there’s all these different things you want in a head coach in theory and I could see where JJ reic checks almost all the boxes aside from experience put this experience the side for a second we’ll come back to that um but what I’ve learned in 27 years covering this league is that sometimes there are people who fit the outline perfectly and we think yeah that guy looks like a future head coach to me I think that guy is going to have great success and it doesn’t always work and I’m not saying that to cast any doubt on on JJ’s uh tenure with the Lakers it’s just more that we don’t know and so I’m never going to make any proclamations like oh great hire bad hire whatever unless it’s somebody you know you hire Greg papovich or you hire Phil Jackson you hire somebody who’s won a bunch of championships you know when you know you know when it’s proven but for a lot of uh coaches who are first-time head coaches either as assistants who get their first opportunity or who may you know come in through this other route as JJ has you just don’t know we didn’t know Steve Kerr was going to be a success with the the Warriors until he was but Kerr like reick had a lot of those uh you know certain you know certain qualities coming in I think everybody thought Doc Rivers had great potential when he skipped straight from the broadcast Booth to the Orlando Magic Once Upon a Time uh it took a while for him to to find his footing um JJ you know Jason kid you know didn’t do the broadcast rout but Jason kid like took his jersey off and two days later was hired to coach the Nets and it went badly with the Nets and it went kind of badly with the Milwaukee Bucks but Jason kid just coached the Mavericks to the finals it just you know took a while for him to get his pudding you just never know is the thing so we were talking about this Howard Scotty and I were going back and forth and we were talking about the Dan Hurley turn down and maybe what that meant to the Lakers and I can’t help but think their second offer and their second public push had to be for a guy that would not turn him down how important do you think that was that the next offer was the guy that accepted I don’t know I I don’t think that stuff matters in the end um you you know you hire the person you believe in you hire the person who who who makes the the the the best impression or the great impression um you don’t always get your first choice it doesn’t matter as long as the person works out in the end and even the thing where you know oh how’s JJ going to feel if he knows he was you know there was this big public display of their Pursuit for Hurley it really doesn’t matter like JJ on day one I guarantee this question is gonna come up at the press conference and JJ’s gonna say some form of the following Dan Hurley won back-to-back national championships and he’s one of the best coaches around and he’s got way more experience than me I would have tried to hire him first too and there’s there’s no shame in me being you know a second choice to him and nobody in the locker room is going to care either as long as JJ can can you know impress them and persuade them that he knows what he’s doing like that’s the job of every head coach buyin we he hear this all the time that phrase buyin it you don’t have to be the best exes anos person you don’t have to be the savviest you don’t have to be the most forceful you just need bu it your players have to buy into your system and and try to execute it at the highest level whatever that system may be and and I think JJ’s got all the promise in the world in that regard I want to Circle back a little bit on Dan Hurley do you antici at some point he will be an NBA head coach and the reason I asked that does it say more about maybe the Laker job than it did the Yukon job that he’s like H you know what if I’m gonna dip my toes in that water I don’t necessarily want it to be that job don’t know don’t know um don’t know what his career aspirations are don’t know how interested in the NBA he is uh as far as we all know that was the first time he’s really flirted with an NBA team or an NBA team has flirted with him could happen again uh but yeah I I I don’t even know how to to guess on that one is coaching LeBron as big a det turn as maybe some of us might think it is I don’t think so um you start with the cliche that there’s only 30 of these jobs because that matters and these jobs also pay really really well uh and and even better since Monty Williams got that contract a year ago everybody’s resigning for a lot more so no I mean there are plenty of people who would line up for that job and you know that Dan Hurley turned down the Lakers to stay at Yukon probably has much to do with with Yukon in his own career aspirations as it does the Lakers um again I don’t I can’t mind read there but you know I I I just LeBron’s got a year or two left you know I mean he’s turning 40 in December you it feels sometimes like this can go on forever but it won’t he’s going to retire at some point in the next couple of years so the person taking this job as JJ reck just has on a multi-year deal you’re as long as anything catastrophic happens you’re out lasting LeBron you’re the bridge to the next version of the Lakers built around Anthony Davis maybe or maybe it’s a tear down maybe they’ve acquired another younger Star by then who knows it’s it’s the Lakers it’s always a great job when it’s the Lakers now it hasn’t been a great job in terms of stability for the last 10 to 15 years um they’ve cycled through coaches almost as fast as anyone so the but that’s not a that’s not a LeBron problem that’s a Lakers problem this idea that like oh like LeBron is some deterrent he’s one of the greatest players of all time and and all the great players all the Legends come with some sort of of challenge if you’re the head coach or if you’re the front office because those guys usually have you know a lot of Sway and some demands and whatever but Leon I don’t think is different than anybody else the real problem is the Lakers haven’t had the conviction of the stability over the years to say nothing of the fact fact that I don’t think they’ve done a particularly great job in putting rosters together about around LeBron James and Anthony Davis and yes they won a championship along the way but um then they immediately blew up the roster that got them there being paid $65 million not to Works a heck of a gig if you can get it uh how surprised are you with the Monty Williams move not that he was just fired but the fact they fired him after one year I mean if you had asked me that question you know months ago I’d say uh yeah things don’t look great but you know you got to give them more time the roster blows uh they’re they’re in a really weird place right now no one would succeed but it’s the way it went it’s some of the choices he made and it’s the fact that the that and look I don’t want to give the ownership too much credit here but it’s to the owner’s credit that he realized we’re going the wrong direction on every level here and so they didn’t just fire Monty Williams obviously they they fired the GM first and when you bring in a new GM in trade in of course the new GM is going to want to be able to pick a different coach uh or pick their own coach and especially after a year as disastrous as what we just saw so you know the surprise is only in that they had to swallow a lot of money but most of these NBA owners are billionaires now like the swallowing this 60-some million is you know pocket change so what I understand that comes down from Tom gors I know that they just hired Treon Landon and they were trying to get some things going but how about the timing of the firing feels delayed late I I know they were through some transition but why why wait to this point where we’re just a week foot away from the draft totally fair question and I think I think the timing is unfortunate I think teams need to be more decisive on these things um and I would say the same thing for the Lakers coaching search that that you know you don’t want to come right down to a week before the draft to finally name your head coach uh the Cavaliers are still trying to to to name a head coach too so they’re in that boat like I I don’t think it’s ideal but you know teams have a process and you just got to work your way through it and it took a while for the Pistons to decide to hire tryan Langton and then a while to decide uh oh Troy Weaver is he staying no actually he’s not St like they did it such a in such a weird fashion even just rhetorically like making it sound like these were all just oh Troy Weaver has decided to leave us now like no you hired his replacement like so the whole thing has been a little bit clunky and then I don’t blame Tran for taking some time to evaluate everything before deciding to move on from Monty Williams like he you know he just was named to the job himself langon a few weeks ago um I think it was a few weeks the finals and the playoffs just you know make times completely obscured I you tell me if I don’t remember what the date was but it I I just do think a new GM is going to come in they’re going to take some time to evaluate everything before going to the owner and saying hey I need you to swallow 60 something million because I don’t want this coach wow so you know we get in the media we get a little over reactionary on on recent events and last year at this time we’re like wow Denver is not going to win one NBA title they’re going to win a bunch of them they might win them in a row they’re just so good and Young and the way they’re built uh it’s hard not to think that to a certain extent with Boston as well based on the youth and what they’ve got available to them um just just how special could this team be for years to come I am on record it’s out there somewhere on a podcast or maybe several as pumping the brakes on everybody’s Dynasty talk with the Nuggets um and it wasn’t because I had any issues with the Nuggets it’s it’s just it’s hard to repeat much less become a dynasty and we need teams to win two because two does not make a dynasty you need to win at least three in a certain SP certain span and so like we we need to stop doing this um do the Celtics have the potential do the Nuggets still have the potential each of these teams to win multiple in the next three to five years yes I but nothing is guaranteed injuries come into play salary cap comes into play we’ve got a new collective bargaining agreement that has uh what you have I’m sure heard of the second apron coming into play because that’s going to make it harder for teams to retain talent and add Talent uh we have six champions in six years hasn’t happened since the 1970s we’re in a time of extreme parity and volatility and it’s ever harder to keep a team together and to to just sustain over a 3 to five year period so Celtics are incredible and and they’ve got got youth on their side they’ve got everybody under contract um and they absolutely have the potential to repeat they absolutely have the potential to become a dynasty but I I wouldn’t jump there just yet just as I wasn’t prepared to jump there with the Nuggets a year ago I’ve fallen in love with Joe moula you know it’s a guy that’s three years younger than Al Horford that plays for him and four years younger than LeBron James and many years younger than a lot of guys that play in the NBA and here he is kind of beating to his own or walking to his Own Drum and creating his own path and being his own guy but still holding a high standard give me your overall just thoughts and projections of what he pulled off in in his postseason record and the run to this Championship it’s pretty impressive and and yeah I mean listen he’s definitely a unique individual very quirky um strikes me sometimes taking himself maybe a little too seriously I hope he loosens up over time in year one I thought well this is a guy who’s really young who’s only even been an NBA assistant for a couple years before being promoted to the head of of of the bench and here he is with one of the most storied franchises in all sports and with all these expectations I understood why he might be a little bit self-serious and uptight uh at times in year one uh now that he’s won a championship and it’s two years in I I hope he he loosens up a little bit up there but he’s different he’s he’s wired a little differently but he he knows his stuff he’s really smart about the game he believes in his principles and his players have have bought in we’ll use that phrase again and you know look but we’d also be remiss not to note that he got to build on a team that was pretty far along when OKO was suspended and ultimately dismissed and you know there were strange times and and again it’s to missoula’s credit like he was pushed into that job you know on on Eve of training camp basically promoted and without the ability to hire his own staff in Year One and and so again it’s really impressive the way he has handled it all since day one weird circumstances challenging circumstances um and was following guy IM udoka who had gotten them to the finals in 2022 his first year as a head coach and who had instilled I think a lot of the the the defensive tenacity and discipline that had gotten the Celtics on you know onto the track where they could make this kind of breakthrough uh but Missoula absolutely built on and had to get you know everybody to buy in all over again after udoka was was fired and so um it’s been really impressive and and especially given his age it is uh locker room cleanout interview um or you know end of season interview Danny a mentioned that you know the Jazz would go big game hunting if they could in the offseason and trying to improve this roster and and try to get themselves back in the playoffs coming up next season with that said is there any Rumblings that there’s any big game available uh to be had even though the Jazz have a ton of assets and and uh some ammunition to work with I mean it’s going to be all the same names that we’ve been talking about for months you know are the Hawks going to move off of one of their point guards Trey young or dejonte Murray will the Cavaliers move off of one of their guys your old friend Donovan Mitchell or Darius Garland uh will the Cavaliers move off of one of their big men presumably Jared Allen um are the Nets holding on to male Bridges uh stubbornly I would say um you know is Paul George leaving in free agency like we’ve got all the you know plenty of speculation and plenty of big names that could move around this summer in free agency or trade but it’s usually less than the number of players we actually talk about I don’t know that there’s any big opportunity there and I’ll say this and I don’t mean it to sound like a hot take I think there’s more likely of the Jazz taking a step back than taking a step forward like if somebody made them a sweetheart deal for for L Lowry marinin that wouldn’t surprise me either because the fact is this if you look at where the Jazz are right now and you look at the teams ahead of them and you look at the fact that a team like the Grizzlies were only down because of injuries you you know they were whatever top three just a year ago um they’re going to bounce back and the Spurs now have wanyama are going to keep building around him and the rockets are already starting to make their leap where’s the room for the Jazz to be like a a trait or two or or one big game hunt away from from being in playoff contention it’s really crowded and now there are teams that are on the downside right like the Lakers we don’t know how much longer they’re going to be a really good team but as long as LeBron is around they’re going to be in the mix the Warriors have age issues the Clippers have age issues and could lose Paul George but I just don’t see where the path is for the Jazz to to make some swing this summer and be like okay we’re back in business um so I think it’s either something smaller around the margins or again not to be hot taky but if somebody made them a great offer for Lowry marinin and it was one more step back to take steps forward later when there’s more of an opportunity to actually climb the sings that would seem like a plausible way to go to just on the topic of Danny a uh quickly Howard I’m I’m just curious how much credit do you give him for what the Boston Celtics just did a lot I mean it’s really interesting to to look at that like if you just go all the way back right this all starts with the Paul Pierce Kevin Garnett trade that they made with the Nets in my back yard um and they get that gets them the picks that ultimately become Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown so Danny AG made an incredible deal that got him two cornerstones two all NBA players um two guys who are you know going to are already now you know etched in history for the Celtics and and will be in NBA history as as you know potentially alltime greats and then he hands it off to Brad Stevens who you know Danny hired Brad Stevens as coach at a time when nobody thought Brad Stevens could make that leap from head coach at Butler to head coach of the Celtics and gave him a long-term deal because he believed in him Danny was right Brad Stevens then jumps to the front office and I think a lot of folks and this definitely includes me thought well okay great coach but like coaching and gming are are very very different jobs in this business and not everybody who can do one can do the other in fact most people who can do one really well can’t do the other and so I was skeptical but Brad Stevens has made some really smart Savvy moves and you know he’s the one who obviously you know gets them Derek white and makes the deals for porzingis and Drew holiday and he like he’s just P you know he’s he’s hit all the right buttons and has gotten the right Supporting Cast around the two guys that Danny a uh left him you know that that he had coached and now that he’s presiding over so um they both deserve a ton of credit Howard great uh conversation as always appreciate your time and uh enjoy the draft next week should be interesting and then of course the offseason where there’s never a shortage of story lines but we appreciate your time and uh hopefully have a good summer thanks Howard appreciate it fellas thank you there he is Howard Beck senior NBA rider for the ringer
• The Ringer senior NBA writer Howard Beck
