The hiring of Danny Ainge by the Utah Jazz is a signal for how involved Ryan Smith is in basketball decisions. Ainge and Smith are longtime friends with connections in Utah and are both from Eugene, Oregon.

"Ainge is not the person who makes the basketball decisions," said Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective Podcast. "He's the person who probably makes the strongest recommendation to the new owner, who is very involved and ultimately has the final say. Ryan Smith is, as he put it, he's like most modern ownership guys is the way he put it when I talked to him [last Wednesday] and he's going to make the final call.

"Now, he's going to rely, obviously, extremely heavily on the advice of Danny Ainge and Quin Snyder and Justin Zanik. And Ainge, I'm sure, will have the loudest voice. But this is Ryan Smith's show."

"I don't think there's any question about that," replied Tim Bontemps. "The fact that it's Ryan Smith's show is the reason Danny Ainge is in Utah. Going back to even before last season ended, there was talk about this maybe happening in some form."