The Downbeat: Sydney Kings Hype

With just over a month until the preseason, we enter the final stretch of the offseason. I don’t know about you, but I am ready this season to get going. Today we’ll take a look at a myriad of things, our first preseason matchup against the Sydney Kings, Jeff Withey’s new destination, Ekpe Udoh’s summer tour, a potential reunion between Rudy Gobert and Trevor Booker, and an interview with Dennis Lindsey.

Forward Tom Garlepp of the Sydney Kings was interviewed about his upcoming match with the Utah Jazz.

It’s neat to see these bridges and connections being built with the international teams. It is certainly an exciting time to be a basketball fan. Basketball is a growing sport, and America may finally have some competition developing in the future. Who knows, maybe one day we could even have an entire NBA expansion conference added for international teams. Until then, I will keep wishing for a Sacramento vs Sydney preseason game, so we can finally know which Kings squad is the finest.

Jeff Withey quietly inked a deal this past week.

Add this to the list of past Jazz players who have been signed by the Mavericks.

We got another look into Ekpe Udoh’s Jr. Jazz summer tour.

Ekpe’s personality is really starting to grow on me. He’s already doing good in the community and he has only been a member of the Jazz for just over a month. I can’t wait to see what he can do in a real game.

Rudy Gobert always seems well-thought-out and intentional with his actions on social medias. This weekend, he liked a post suggesting that a certain player should return to the Jazz.

Ignoring the issues with contracts, if you could bring back any past Jazz player to the current roster (barring treasonists and leprechauns) who would you choose?

I wanted to discuss Utah Jazz General Manager Dennis Lindsey’s weekly Friday interview with 1280 the Zone. He dropped some very interesting info this week. I suggest you take a listen. He talks about many things, including some cool details regarding the Sefolosha signing, Jazz culture, emulating the Spurs, the new Salt Lake City Stars coach, and more.

If there are two people I always enjoy listening to, they are Quin Snyder and Dennis Lindsey. What are some things you found interesting in this interview? I feel the Jazz have done an exceptionally good job at regaining a ‘culture’, after the Sloan culture essentially imploded in 2011. We seem to have went back and picked up a few aspects of our old culture that would fit well in the modern NBA, such a toughness and grit, but there is a lot that Dennis, Quin and others brought with them that is new to the Jazz. What are some of the differences you notice?