NBA Podcast: The NBA Finals, Coaching changes, and Utah Jazz memories

I was on the Phil Naessens' show again last week, and while this went up four days ago I'm really bad at this 'time' thing. Anyway, Phil had me on to talk about two segments (the first one, and the last one). Why should you listen to this podcast? It's awesome. It's also filled with Utah Jazz questions and a trip down memory lane. So just click this and keep reading:

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Segment One [0:00 - 14:30]:

• The Los Angeles Clippers sale, what's up with Donald Sterling, and how to make money in Hollywood
• The Oklahoma City Thunder, what to do about their coaching, should Scott Brooks stay, or go? Is Derek Fisher a real coaching candidate?
• How crazy are the New York Knicks? Is Phil Jackson really going to help them?
• and of course . . . the Minnesota Timberwolves boss Flip Saunders has his hands full with problem child Kevin Love.

Segment Two [38:40 - 55:00]:

• Which is your most favorite Utah Jazz team?
• How long will it take until the Jazz are competitive again?
• Who would you hire to be the Utah Jazz coach? (This is HILARIOUS to listen to now that we have a new coach in Quin Snyder)
• NBA Finals Predictions (also hilarious to read)

Just listen to the whole show, the middle segment is about the Chicago Cubs -- and I know Basketball John is a Cubs fan. Anyway, Phil had some answers to these questions so here they are!

Pete Maravich was one of my all time favorite players. I remember listening to him tell a reporter why his socks were "droopy" and his answer described my situation perfectly; his calves weren’t big enough to hold them up so he just let them "droop" and he didn’t care what anyone else thought about it either. That answer worked for this at the time nine year old and I was a fan of his forever so when he was traded by Atlanta to an expansion team from New Orleans called the "Jazz" I started following the Jazz as best I could.

Those early teams weren’t very good but I didn’t really mind because I wasn’t a fan of the Jazz I was a Maravich fan. Not the type of fan that abandoned a team they’d been rooting for since birth just a fan of a cool guy who helped a little kid with their low self esteem who happened to play for another team.

On Wednesday’s show listeners asked Amar which Utah Jazz team was his favorite and what he felt the Jazz needed to do to get back into the playoffs. I was sorta general with my comments and I would like to take my turn to answer both questions as best as I can. (You’ll be able to listen to what Amar had to say at the bottom of this posting).

Even though I enjoyed the Stockton Malone era and their style of play (two of the dirtiest players ever) I would have to say the team the Jazz are currently attempting to build is my favorite team. Yes they were dead last in darn near every statistical category known to mankind and yes they seemed to find interesting and sometimes unique ways to lose but they are onto something in Utah and I like what I saw last season.

I really like the starting five of Enes Kanter, Derrick Favors, Alec Burks, Trey Burke and Gordon Hayward and wish that ousted former Head Coach Tyrone Corbin had used that unit more than just a grand total of 123 minutes together. I get the "Rigging for Wiggins Sweepstakes" but with such a deep draft pool what was the point of not playing these young "lottery picks" more often together? My own personal opinion is the Jazz front office knew these kids weren't going to be one of the worst teams in the league playing every night together so they ordered Corbin not to play them together very much. Corbin may or may not have been the answer in Utah but surely even he could recognize how good this group could be. So the first thing I would do is play these kids together more often than they did this season.

The second thing I would like to see is the Jazz securing Gordon Hayward to a max deal. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why the Front Office didn’t extend this kid and lock him in under their own terms but it is what it is. In my opinion keeping this kid on the squad is vital to the future success of this team and unfortunately for the Jazz Front Office they will probably have to pay him far more then they would have if they had only extended him when they could.

The third and maybe the most important thing will be finding a solid Head Coach. Utah has been lucky in the past with men like Frank Layden and Jerry Sloan and I think they need to look for someone along those same lines. Big names like Lionel Hollins and Mike D’Antoni have been suggested the Jazz hired Quin Snyder. I'm not as yet convinced this is a very good move. I'll have to think on this and we'll be talking about this on my show Wednesday.

As I mentioned before Amar was on my show today answering listener’s questions and hanging around with me talking NBA hoops. It’s always fun having Amar on the show and in between all that Rush Olson and I talked Chicago Cubs Baseball. You can listen below or download it from my site here.

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Thanks for reading fans, thanks for listening too -- and thanks to Phil for having me on the show! My question to you fans is what do you think the Jazz need to do to get back to being contenders?