fingers crossed

today's post inspired by my favorite band from scandinavia, in no small part because they manage to make a gretsch and a dual rectifier work together. for those of you who, while musically inclined, are not up on your guitar/amp pairings, that's like george harrison joining slayer.

oh, the nba and your constant flurry of making me feel human emotions. what's the single biggest heartbreaking story you've delivered to my electronic doorstep this season?

the end of greg oden's career in portland? no (although wesley matthews, on whom i am developing a creepy man crush, going to portland is in my top five).

the unsurprising news that your idiot fans voted yao to the all-star game even though (1) he mediocre at best, and (2) he's constantly injured? booooriiiing.

is it even the jazz and their middling, consistently inconsistent play? i'm afraid not.

no, the nba's 2010-2011 saddest byline has been, and continues to be, the plight of the cleveland cavaliers. i get that gilbert's open letter, along with footage of fans burning lebron jerseys, from seems-so-long-ago summer made the team and its supporters out to be a bunch of crying bitches. but you know what? they were right to be angry.

hey jazz nation, remember every time boozer had a radio interview with chicago or miami? remember how you wanted to pluck out his goose-turd (anyone ever play a round at forestdale?) eyebrows and forcefeed them back to the guy for talking about leaving utah so openly? how do you think you'd feel if he had promised you a championship after growing up in ogden, only to run to LA as soon as he was a free agent?

see, they had a right to be changry.

and now, given the 25-and-counting losses by the cavs, i present to you the saddest story in modern basketball. a team, once a perennial playoff contender; a team that, for a few seasons, was at least a darkhorse championship threat, is now a poster child for pity. and it's not like the season started out completely bleak for cavs fans; even before the streak, cleveland wasn't looking fantastic, but they were sitting at 8-19. that's a .296 record, enough to have them only 4 or 5 games out of playoff contention right now had they kept that tepid pace (detroit, at .373, is 3.5 games out of 8th as of this writing, while new jersey, at .288, is 8 back). but this losing streak: it's enough to make most nba fans look away from sports center out of sheer embarrassment.

so what's got my fingers crossed? besides always having some lateral strain on the knuckles in my hand for the sake of the jazz making it to 4th in the west in the next 9 weeks, i'm crossing them in hopes that the jazz don't turn into cleveland after the 2011-2012 [season/lockout]. yesterday, scott howard-cooper, or scow-poop as i like to call him, posted a quick note regarding sloan's recently announced one-year extension over on nba.com's hangtime blog. predictably, the comments were split evenly along three lines:
(1) non-jazz fans who respect sloan but hate the jazz wishing their team had a coach like sloan;
(2) jazz fans who are excited about the news; and
(3) jazz fans who have a flaming case of hemorrhoids who think the team would be better off without sloan if only because retaining him is going to send d-will packing once his contract is up.

i'm not one to put much weight behind comments on sekou smith's brainchild, though i realize the irony of being one of many inane sports fans with his own dozens-of-hits-per-week blog while discounting my fellow social-media-savvy morons. but the last few weeks of chatter regarding deron's unhappiness, sloan's unwillingness to change, and the "necessity' of having a big three to be a championship contender has given me pause.

frankly, i don't see sloan's presence as a deal-breaker for his gr8ness. if deron wants out of utah, it's not going to be because of sloan (despite a snide comment about running the same plays for 23 years). it's going to be because of the front office's unwillingness to spend "what it needs to" to build the jazz into a title threat (i refuse to refer to championships as "chips," by the way). it's going to be because the existing team is, frankly, pretty lazy. it's because the ESA is getting quieter by the game. it's, to some degree, because he moved from downtown to holladay which is full of creepy polygamists and people who say things like "i got that H for you."

simply put, it's because deron wants to win a championship, and because he's such a perfectionist, he's not going to wait for that to fall into his lap.

the comparisons to john stockton need to stop, and they need to stop now. stockton was a fundamentals-only workhorse who did what he was told and played one game at a time. stockton played before kobe and shaq's personal problems led to one of the deadliest frontcourt pairings splitting apart; before dwayne, dwight, and chuck did commercials together; before the nba stole a championship franchise from seattle; before lebron. simply put, he played before the league finally became, right up front and unabashedly, about money first, rings second. deron wants a ring, and he knows that the fastest way to get there is with a hefty price tag.

but he also knows that a huge payroll, by itself, isn't going to be enough. the jazz are over the salary cap now and it's not working, which means utah's players and fans have one more year to prove to deron that he should stick around. that's not going to be on jerry; the guy is a hall-of-fame coach that has been to the western conference finals twice. please, go ahead and name me another coach on a team, as it exists right now, with room for deron who has better credentials.

the problem for utah is that this final year might not come. it's a real possibility that, with a season-long lockout, sloan and deron both walk; sloan permanently, and d-will to blue and greener pastures in dallas after jason kidd also hangs up his nikes.

thus i keep my fingers crossed. not for the jazz, but for the NBA, the NBAPA and derek fisher (booo) to make sure there is no lockout, no de-certification of the union to bring lawsuits. i'm crossing them for the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people across the country who will be out of work (part or full time) as a result of stadiums being closed. i'm crossing them for jarron collins and sundiata gaines and all the players who make relatively few dollars, half of which goes to taxes and the other half to union dues that might put them out of a job*.

but, selfishly, i mostly keep them crossed for myself, to keep jerry sloan and deron williams in utah. i'll take 48 wins on the season over 25 consecutive losses any day of the week.

and now we all know, 25 consecutive losses after losing your coach and your all-star is an all-too-real possibility.


*i don't need a lecture that $200k isn't a lot of money. do the math: $100k, more or less, to taxes. $30k to union dues. $10k or so to relocate yourself, and your family, to a new city every 2-3 years. family coming out of the woodwork for financial support. pressure to live up to the NBA rep and drive a benzo and eat at fleming's. suddenly these bottom-tier nba players are bringing home about what you do, and they are going to have ruined knees and backs when they're 40.

whoa on the woes

today's title brought to you by fatty & crew

perhaps my post after friday's game against boston was a bit rash. well, being rash wasn't really the problem with the entry - i was a little buzzed and highly disappointed that the reason for my trip to beantown had unfolded in such an ugly way. in any event, i could have put my thoughts more clearly. here's my more reflective take on what's happening with the jazz right now.

I

first, the wizards have proved that on a given night, any team in the NBA is capable of beating the league's best. by defeating the celtics last night, DC illustrated that every team is made up of professional athletes and, while an entire season will eventually separate the wheat from the chaff, is more than able to put on a show (or just hit a 3 - off the glass - from baltimore) when things are clicking. while this kind of reasoning doesn't exculpate jerry and his players from the collective cork-sorking (that link is definitely NSFW) they've been up to lately, it made me feel a little better about losing to washington.

II

second, and this was something i only realized after reading a post from jazzbot randall harris, deron has been getting off pretty easy through all of this. there are dozens of posts on the UJ360 boards from the recent weeks calling for starting lineup changes, rotation remixes, trades, and (the perennial-if-not-asinine) firing of sloan. mr. harris noted something important: the jazz made all the moves deron has been asking for in the previous few seasons. he wanted more length, and he got it (boozer is 6'9", al is pushing 6'11"). he wanted more poise and veteran leadership,and he got it (wes matthews and ronnie brewer have played a combined 442 games, raja has played 644). he wanted improved eastern europeans, and he got it (fes dropped 15 pounds and had some impressive-for-an-oaf spin moves early in the season, AK kept the muscle mass he gained during the 2009 summer and hasn't broken anything yet, and memo was back sooner than i figured he would be).

the biggest detriment to the jazz, and one that d-will has been comfortable pointing out, is that they don't have a shooting guard that can shoot. what, you ask? deron's never said that, you retort. he has, he is just couching it by insisting that players "don't know the plays" or "aren't getting around screens." the problem is that shooting guards get open looks only when the offense is clicking - and the offense hasn't been clicking, so there haven't been a lot of opportunities for mid-range jumpers from raja or cj. and it's easy to blame those guys for being lazy on offense and settling for bad outside shots when the scripted play doesn't happen the way it should. hence, when deron says people don't know the plays, he's suggesting (among other things) that his shooting guards aren't effective shooters.

which is only half-true. if deron was passing better, there would be more open shots. if deron were pushing the ball better, the rest of the offense would be forced to be a step faster down the court and thus better able to get around screens and have time to square up before shooting. kyle korver was brilliant at catching off the curl because he hustled, and his half-step advantage on his defender meant he could use the extra quarter-second to get his body in the right position rather than chucking up a brick over the hand in his face.

so when i say "whoa on the woes," i guess i mean that perhaps the problem with the jazz isn't really so wide-spread as to begin questioning the integrity of the entire organization. everybody on the team needs to step their game up - watching the boston game was a painful experience for those expecting anyone on the jazz to hustle (even ronnie price, normally a spark plug, seemed to know he was beaten before he even stepped on the court). but a big part of the problem right now is deron; he needs to figure out how to avoid getting bogged down in frustration and elevate his game, as well as take randall's advice and get in the driver's seat as far as being the team captain and leader is concerned.

and, in the interim, maybe the fans and media could be willing to criticize deron a little more when he's not doing his job.

III

despite how terrible things look right now, thanks to the modern nature of the western conference, we remain within a game or two of third in the west and only a handful of W's out of second (although i doubt we're going to catch up to san antonio). and things are going to get better. everybody on the team is slumping a little bit right now, and slumps don't last forever. this jazz squad is simply too talented and too well-coached to have all aspirations slip away this early in the season. i'm anticipating a few more mediocre games before we finally catch a break and watch two or three jazzmen get hot in the same 3rd quarter. that should breath some new life into an otherwise flat squad. i know my record of jazz predictions isn't exactly stellar (still waiting on jefferson to punch in a single triple-double since i called him having 5 or more this season), but i think that after a couple more cringe-inducing losses against (hate to say it, but the odds aren't in our favor) the lakers and tim duncan, the team will get it back together enough to win a few in a row before playing in denver on february 4th.

IV

i just finished watching happy gilmore for the first time in maybe 8 years. still hillarious.

everything in moderation

today's entry brought to you by everybody's favorite "white trash, two kikes and a spic." this is their own description of themselves. not kidding.

despite a terrific effort in the fourth + OT against houston on saturday night, i must admit that i have overly embraced this year's jazz squad. or, rather, i've been too enthusiastic about the potential within this team and not giving enough credit to reality.

paul millsap had an unbelievable final 8 minutes against the rockets. deron played pretty well; 14 points and 15 dimes. but he also had 4 turnovers and shot 1-6 from beyond the arc. the jazz pulled down 31 boards just between AK, paul, and big al (with 53 boards overall to the rockets' 42).

but, the brilliance of the performance was overshadowed by the rusty-if-not-just-plain-bad showings the jazz have been putting together for a few weeks now. in fact, the biggest shadow cast over utah collecting the W on saturday night was the fact that it took an all-star night from millsap, in overtime, to beat a team that sits at 16-21; a team who is dead last in its division; a team that sits tied for sixth-worst organization in the entire NBA.

winning in overtime against the dregs of the NBA? that doesn't exactly reflect a bright future for the victorious jazz.

what exactly is wrong with this squad? i thought maybe a disinterested home crowd was partially to blame - and to some extent, i still do. but i will concede that it's harder for a crowd to back a team that plays .500 ball in the northwest division.

i think anybody who is interested in the jazz knows what the symptoms are at this point in the season: poor rebounding, no-showing in the first quarter/half, streaky shooting, etc. effectively, we look what we should have looked like in the pre-season. and that's where, in my opinion, the trouble begins.

with the jazz's roster getting turned inside-out and upside-down over the summer, nobody expected - even with the acquisitions of jefferson and bell - the jazz to crush all comers back in early october. when regular season play started against denver and phoenix, any shake of the magic 8 ball came up with "buckle up for a long and painful rebuilding process." but things started clicking shortly after the season began and suddenly the bleakness began to sharpen up; color emerged where once there was only gray.

and so the problem intensified. the jazz, playing against crap teams (or good teams that completely collapsed late in the game, had a chance to build their confidence while not building their skills. or at least the skills weren't being put together fast enough to keep up with the rest of the league.

don't believe me? check the standings again. the jazz may currently be tied for 4th in the west and 8th overall, that's true. but look at the numbers in the west again and remember that the northwest is the most competitive division in the NBA (at least in terms of landing a top playoff seed). and also consider that the western conference, despite the recent rise of chicago and miami, is still the superior group of teams in the NBA. case in point: the seventh-ranked team in the east, the pacers, are 14-20, while philly, in 8th, are barely above .400 ball; the 8th in the west, portland, is 20-18.

keeping those numbers in mind, look at the jazz and its records (1) at home, (2) in the NW division, and (3) in the west:

1. the jazz are 13-7 (.650)at home. not too shabby, in theory, but not what jazz fans are used to. more importantly, it's not that great compared to some similar or "worse" teams (in terms of overall records) in the nba: memphis (.647), portland (.750), denver (.789), OKC (.737), atlanta (.722). get it? you effectively have to get to teams under .500 before you see worse home records, and memphis has almost the exact record at home as the jazz at 17-20 overall.
2. utah is tied for first in its division with durantula and the thunder. as of today, the jazz lead OKC in road record (.667/.611, respectively) and in no other category. OKC holds the edge in home record (see above), division record (OKC @ .857, UTA @ .429), and conference record (OKC @ .609, UTA @ .542).
   denver, four games back in the NW, is only worse than the jazz on the road. denver's numbers: at home (DEN @ .789, UTA .650), against NW teams (DEN @ .667, UTA @ .429), and against western conference teams (DEN @ .583, UTA @ .542).
   even portland, those wes matthews stealing sons of bitches, has some edges on the jazz where it counts come playoff seeding time. home record (POR @ .750, UTA @ .650), NW record (POR @ .556, UTA @ .429) and a similar conference record (POR @ .538, UTA @ .542).
3. i don't think i need to break down to percentages how the jazz fit with the rest of the west, since excluding the three better teams (spurs, dallas, lake-show), only new orleans is currently 8th or higher (6th) in the conference without being in the northwest. they're three games behind the jazz and have better home and division records.

what do these numbers mean? they mean the jazz have been playing well against teams that don't matter, or at least the jazz aren't playing as well against teams that matter as those teams themselves handle the best of the west.

so what does this have to do with moderation? watching paul put up 46 on miami was intoxicating. the fact that it was one of four consecutive games on the road that resulted in a win only added to feeling. having a team that makes these semi-heroic comebacks from 10+ time and again lends a fan, like myself, to believe that no hole is too deep.

but the fact is the holes are being dug against shallow teams - at least, that's been true excluding the glorious road streak of november, and that was very early in the season. while the jazz have been talking about improving and executing better as the season moves forward, those four november road wins were effectively wiped away when we lost to miami and atlanta at home in horrid fashion. adding insult to injury, portland spanked us twice in a week, while dallas and new orleans each put on a "how to crush a college-level team in the NBA" clinic against Jerry's Kids in december.

the thing to take in moderation is the jazz's moderation. sometimes they play like NBA champions - but it's only a few moments at a time and generally against mediocre squads. i'm not trying to suggest that i have lost hope in the jazz. in fact, running through these numbers has done the opposite for me. the jazz, despite having numbers of a .400 - .500 team in some regards, have shown flashes of brilliance in their inconsistency. so long as sloan is at the helm, i still have a firm belief that things will continue to get better.

but i think it might be time to have a more realistic view of what's coming in the next few weeks. i've said a few times already that the jazz had a shot at going on a few 10 game win streaks between now and late march. barring a miracle (herely of rapid development to full potential, not one to potential that doesn't exist), i'm thinking it looks more like a couple 5 - 6 game streaks would be fantastic but not inevitable.

even so, that kind of winning still leaves the jazz in the playoff hunt while the team continues to improve. hey, even if they only improve moderately (looping on a theme!), OKC doesn't stay at the top of the northwest. that will be something to celebrate in excess.

taking initiative

me and utah's most famous vocalist/nba star, thurl bailey.

i took my own advice last night at the detroit-utah game regarding having a more active crowd at the ESA, and apparently other people were eager to get on board.

remember that tracy mcgrady guy? googly eyes, somehow made it onto the all-star ballot last year despite playing like 3.5 minutes the entire season? well, it turns out he's still in the NBA. in detroit of all places! who knew the city could actually get worse?

somewhere in the back of my mind i recalled t-mac moving to the city of rusterly love over the summer after seeing (the NBA's) number 1 (asshole) come off the bench. my friend collin, who graciously offered me his extra ticket, seemed to be on the same page as i was regarding mcgrady. we talked a bit about how detroit is actually a fairly stacked team, what with hamilton, tayshaun, and mcgrady all on one squad.

but then we remembered the reason we hate t-mac. not because of his all-star caliber playing (when he is actually playing, the guy is amazing - off the bench last night, he almost had a triple-double). not because he lives in the spotlight (the only spotlights in detroit are on SWAT vehicles). not because he has a penchant for knocking the jazz out of the playoffs (you can count on zero fingers how many times mcgrady pulled houston out of the first round).

no, jazz fans hate tracy mcgrady because back in the 2008 playoffs - a year after the rockets were eliminated from the postseason by utah - mcgrady took a snide jab at d-will in a post-game interview after losing game 4 in salt lake city. mcgrady, who had witnessed first hand how d-will cut houston to pieces without breaking a sweat the year before and was in the middle of repeating his performances, decided that knowing how to pronounce the future all-star point guard's first name hadn't been on his list of priorities.

"what is it? DARE-in? da-RON?"

it answered one question for me; t-mac's last name is actually pronounced "mcdouchebag." bro: you are a good player with absolutely no leadership skills. deron is a great player and runs the floor like a puppeteer. he clowned you right out of the playoffs twice in a row. as far as you are concerned, his first name should be "sir."

anyway, as might be clear by now, my distaste for tracy mcgrady has not been diluted by time. so, late in the third quarter last night, collin and i decided we were going to (a) let mcgrady know what we thought of him personally, and (b) try and get the lackadaisical crowd into the game. we would accomplish this feat using the old two-birds-one-stone trick of booing, as loud as we could, whenever tracy mcgrady, in his #1 jersey, touched the ball. we let the people sitting immediately near us (who were also drunk enough to get involved in this scheme) in on the plan.

this is a rare moment where the storyteller need not embellish or ornament the truth, and the tale remains brilliant and memorable.

within five t-mac touches and our small group's vociferous indication of disapproval of the man, the entire stadium - THE ENTIRE STADIUM - was booing him relentlessly as soon as the cowhide globe was in his hands. his googly eyes went wild (or at least his shooting did) after a few minutes of this intense pressure, as he chucked up a 3rd-grade style hail-mary 3 late in the game that barely, barely nicked the iron on the way down.

it just goes to show that, when you believe in yourself and your opinions, you just might change the world, one stadium at a time.

holler at a player (of the month); seattle superhornets?

normally i reference punk bands of mediocre talent with virtually no modern name recognition. today's title references one of the most underrated hip-hop tracks in history, by a group from atlanta with mediocre talent and virtually no name recognition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJB0UaRxIUQ

d-will, with his first western conference player of the month award.* fantastic. more importantly, he's one of five all-star (or at least all-star-caliber) players on the team. i'm not going to get into deron's stats; you know 'em. everybody knows 'em. and i'm not even talking about memo, because he's out (OBVI).
stats are 2010-11 season average for: points per game - rebounds per game - assists per game - efficiency rating - turnovers per game

• paul millsap: 18.4 - 8.4 - 2.6 - +23.33(!) - 1.4
• andrei kirilenko: 11.9 - 5.0 - 2.8 - +14.1 - 1.8
• al jefferson: 16.9 - 8.7 - 1.7 - +19.81 - 1.2
• raja bell: 8.0 - 2.7 - 1.2 - +7.60 - 0.8(!)
  

first, consider that the jazz are 12th right now in scoring at 101 points per game. however, until last night we were the only team in the league that had played 21 games. indiana and chicago have both played only 18. just to play devils advocate, let's drop what i consider to be three aberrations in terms of scoring so far this season: if you drop the jazz's dismal openers in denver and against phoenix, as well as that golden state nightmare in early november, our team scoring average for those 18 games bumps up to 103.39. that puts jerry's kids 8th in scoring (and moves us from 7th to 5th in the west).

now look at our defensive numbers in terms of points allowed. the jazz sit in a respectable 8th place league-wide with 96.71 - without dropping the above three games (the ranking would probably go up if i didn't include the golden state game, but then we're talking apples and oranges).

that puts the jazz's average scoring differential at +4.29 based on the actual record (7th in the league), and +7.502 (6th) factoring in my dropped three games.

second, look at our starting five's performance per game. in multiple categories, we have not one but two guys in the top 25 players in the west.

• scoring: d-will in 11th with 21.6; paul millsap in 21st with 18.4
• double-doubles: deron in 7th with 11; al in 15th with 8
• efficiency: deron in 7th with +24.6; paul in 12th with +23.3
• rebounds: big al in 18th with 8.7; paul in 21st with 8.4
• steals: deron in 21st with 1.43; millsap in 22nd with 1.24
  

AK was on the bubble for several categories as well. the point is, we're playing outstanding team ball with 24.5 assists per game, led by a potent frontcourt and fed by the best point guard in the league.

know what happens when you get one recockulously good player on the court with four other players at/near the top of their positions relative to the rest of the league? dynasty. don't believe me? look at the last twenty years of championship-winners, paying attention to the multiple-season champs. you'll see an MVP listed, and perhaps you'll remember some of their supporting cast.

hi, we're the utah jazz and we're as stacked as the '90s bulls, deep as the early 2000's spurs, and as long as the current-champ lakers.

***

quick note: the NBA is buying the hornets. sure, they COULD keep trying to make pro hoops work in the Big Easy. but why bother when you could ship them up to seattle and dress them in sonics gear? oh wait, because "somebody" tipped the media off to a gambling ref to stir up 24-7 ESPN coverage while he quietly punched every single shawn kemp fan in washington state directly in the penis. one of my friends here at law school is from seattle and we talked about this friday night. me: "come on man, don't you want to see the NBA back home?" friend: "honestly, i don't want to know that our championship banners are hanging from somebody else's rafters. plus, knowing how it feels to have the league steal your team, i wouldn't wish that on anybody."

in either event, unless a buyer willing to keep the team (not to mention CP3) in nahlins shows up asap, that franchise is eff-you-cee-kayed. p.s. whenever i order a dish featuring my favorite delicious crustacean, i pronounce it like this: "i'll have the detlef schrempf scampi."

***

final note: if you really care about the jazz, you'd already be a member of this facebook group.


*also congratulations to dwight howard; you are a beast of a man, particularly when 10 of the 17 games you played in oct/nov were against sub-.500 teams. how'd you fare against better teams, say the one lead by your POTM companion? let's see, below 50% from the field, 14 points, and nine boards. you did pick up 3 blocks; too bad they were more than offset by your six turnovers and five personal fouls. just for fun, how did utah's center do in that game? 10-16 on 21 points, 8 boards, 3 fouls, 5 TOs and 1 block. big al = bizzaro-dwight?