Although I had not planned on talking about
Harpring Sucks' previous power rankings until all teams had played at least 20 games recent events have made it more urgent that I discuss them now (see last item in this blog entry). First of all, let's be honest in saying that I totally killed the so-called professionals in my previous power rankings in terms of forecasting some early trends. Some notable successful early season predictions that were different than those widely available from more traditional media sources:
#1. The fall of the Miami Heat. Even though the team went winless in the preseason and stumbled through most of last season and was poised to begin the year with its best player inactive, ESPN still consistently projected the Heat to have home court advantage in the playoffs and started the season ranking them at #13. This is equivalent to CNN.com suddenly proclaiming that Chris Dodd is a serious contender for the Democratic Nomination.
Harpring Sucks rated them at #24 for the season, which it turns out may have been overrating them given that they currently have the 27th best record in the NBA.
In large part ESPN ranked Miami at #13 because of the then-recent trade of Antoine Walker to Minnesota for the infamously ridiculous triple double-attempter Ricky Davis. In related news, it turns out that the fountain of youth is in Minneapolis because Antoine Walker suddenly looks like a useful player. At this point it's beginning to look like Miami has replaced Portland as the NBA graveyard where good players go to die. Of course it's only unfortunate that Miami appears to be going out with a whimper rather than a glorious violent bang like those Portland Jailblazers did.
#2. The Magic are actually good! Who would have thought? Oh yeah, Harpring Sucks did. When we rated them #7 in the preseason a common complaint was that we had the Magic too high in the power rankings. Since then they've gone 12-3 and are currently rated #3 in ESPN's rating system. Harpring Sucks would brag, but we're too humble.
#3. Houston wouldn't be that great. In the pre-season rankings Harpring Sucks wrote:
Houston Rockets: John Hollinger thinks they'll win the championship. That's a
good enough reason for me to bury them at around the 70th percentile. Besides
the Hollinger damnation, it's somewhat mystifying that people think they got
tons better. The major free agent acquisition (Steve Francis) is a guy that
Portland paid $30 million NOT to play on the team this season, the prized rookie
(Scola) hasn't shown he can be a complementary piece on the international level,
and Rafer Alston is likely to do something insane this season. Also, Rick
Adelman is prominently involved so you know there's going to be a couple painful
meltdowns this year.
As predicted Steve Francis has done next to nothing this season, Scola has played his best when T-Mac has been out allowing him to have a much larger role in the offense and has struggled at times when having to be complementary and Rick Adelman guided the team to a 7-7 start. Rafer hasn't done anything insane yet but I think we all know it's just a matter of time. At least the Rockets are consistent, they're the same team that took a chance on Eddie Griffin too. And we all know what happened to him...
But we didn't get everything right. We were wrong in the same way everyone else was on one point: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO CHICAGO?!
Admittedly they started 3-9 last season as well but this year they look totally disorganized, Tyrus Thomas bizarrely decided to stop playing well as soon as pre-season games ended and games started counting, and Kirk Hinrich looks like he's been getting into Hot Rod Hundley's barbiturate supply again. If you can tell me exactly what's wrong with them this season without resorting to the hackneyed "It's the coach's fault" excuse (which has always been over-used) I will award an official piece of Harpring Sucks pie*.
* Expect delivery within 6-8 weeks, delivery of pie not guaranteed, void where prohibited.
In other basketball news, if you had "4 weeks" in the "How long will it take the media to turn on Kevin Durant" office pool you win. After watching Durant dominate the ball at Texas last season and take a number of shots that are both simultaneously spectacular and ill-advised basketball analysts are shocked, SHOCKED!, that Kevin Durant is currently dominating the ball and taking ill-advised shots with the Supersonics. If it wasn't for the ongoing public lynching campaign against Isiah Thomas (who really didn't do anything wrong because it's not like Anucha Browne Sanders was hired for her business acumen) the current Kevin Durant backlash would likely be at fever pitch. In some sense I feel bad for Durant because it took the media at least 6 weeks to turn on Adam Morrison last season. Then again, he earns several seasons worth of free pass from me on account of that moustache and generally looking like that guy who asks me for change outside the Greyhound Station.
Tim Ormond fails to mention Sloan Favorites: Tim Ormond needs to resign his position as a jazzbots cheerleader immediately.
Not only did he name Jeff Malone the most underrated Jazz player of all-time (a dubious proposition for anyone who was a fan of the Chris Morris era or if you consider all those criminals Olden Polynice brought to justice) he failed to mention Sloan notables such as Keith McLeod, Milt Palacio, Adam Keefe, Jamie Watson, Quincy Lewis, Calbert Cheaney, and David Benoit. I'd watch out Tim. Jerry is likely to consider your failing to mention those guys as underrated an offense punishable by a tractor run-down.
Carlos Boozer Haikus: In celebration of Carlos Boozer's birthday, Stanton Huntington wrote him several birthday haikus. Suprisingly most of them weren't awful and all had the correct number of syllables. Someone's been taking Jackie Corbridge's graduate courses! He did however fail to write any about some of Carlos' most adorable characteristics. Harpring Sucks would like to rectify that wrong:
Forehead acne is
at threat level orange. Next
time buy proactiv.
An apology: You all have no idea how much I regret not having the foresight to live-blog the Purina National Dog Show on Thanksgiving Day. That truly would have been the gift that would have kept on giving. Let's just say that this man was prominently involved and gave us lots of tips on animal husbandry:
I guess there's always next year. *sigh*
The worthless flock together: As a principle of psychology, people tend to like to group with those who share similar characteristics and social standing. In part, this convenient social ordering prevents large amounts of group infighting and ensures that those parties involved are unlikely to feel threatened by impending success of those they are close to. Keeping that in mind I was completely unsurprised when Laurie Nylund, who appears to be a token inclusion as Jazzbots resident "Jazz Mrs.",
writing a post celebrating the two women who were drafted by the NBA. Of course neither stayed on a team long enough to even make it into a pre-season game.
I'm sure she probably reads books about all the women who "ran for President" but never had a serious shot at the nomination as well.
Gross Omissions Department: Keith Haney wrote a Thanksgiving Day themed post last week listing a number of things that he is thankful for. Included in the list are predictable items such as "winning" and not being over the salary cap. BORING!!! Everyone knows there are much better things to mention than that.
Two things that any true Jazz fan should really be thankful for:
1. Harpring's minutes decreasing: This has two effects. First the Jazz are playing better because he's not on the floor. Second, he seems intent on providing just as much unintentional comedy in the form of falling over, throwing balls out of bounds, and missing lay-ups as he ever has in reduced time. This has led to highly enjoyable stints by Harpring. So much so, Harpring Sucks almost wants him to check into the game at this point just for entertainment value.
I almost want to see how far this can go. I'm becoming convinced if Sloan played him for only five minutes a game he'd have to fall over 3 times a minute just to meet some self-imposed quota. That's approximately once every possession! I really want this to happen.
2. Whoever is dressing Jerry Sloan: His ties this year have looked like Stevie Wonder is his personal shopper. The color combinations have been so garish I've wondered if the color settings on my television are off or if the station is imposing a test pattern on his shirt for some reason. At this point he could wear anything and I wouldn't be stunned. I eagerly anticipate the inevitable Robin's Egg blue/Fuscia/Urine Yellow combination around easter time. Anything less would almost be disappointing.
Why Hitman was the most disappointing movie experience of the year: As a purely hypothetical scenario, let's say you're writing and producing a movie called "Hitman." Wouldn't you make large portions of this move dedicated to your main character actually carrying out hits on his targets? From the previews this movie looked like it should be the ultimate paint-by-numbers action film: a bald bad-ass with a bar code tattooed on the back of his head executing high difficulty contract hits on high level politicians and business men. That can't miss. After all he's got a bar code on the back of his head!
As a brief plot outline to hit all the major cliches of an action film I would have submitted the following scene list:
Scene 1: Hitman shoots high ranking military functionary of indeterminate ethnic origin (Hint: Middle Eastern) by dressing up in a burqa for a disguise. Coup de gras shot occurs after doing "The Dance of the Seven Veils" and luring the military leader into a private tent. Only one person will emerge, and it will be the guy with the guns and the bar code.
Scene 2: Hitman carries out another hit, this time taking out a submarine in the Adriatic Sea with a rented attack helicopter. While he may only need to kill one man instead of sink the sub and its questionable where he could actually rent a fully equipped attack helicopter this is an action movie so the ends justify the means and we can assume our main character is both invincible and has infinite resources.
Scene 3: It's time for character development. Turns out the Hitman is catholic. Incorporate a long scene with liturgical music and Latin as a counterpoint to the brutal violence in the rest of the film. Do that movie thing where the main character inexplicably sheds a tear from the far corner of his eye even though his tear ducts are located near his nose. Everyone loves a guy with tear related super powers.
Scene 4: Receive pay for previous hits. Celebrate by going out on the town and getting at least 20 hookers. I think we all know where this scene is going.
Scene 5: The Hitman is a brutal killing machine. His next assignment is a flower girl at a wedding. He should use extreme prejudice. Flower girl should have paid her gambling debts.
Scene 6: He feels bad about his last job and confesses to his priest. Sins are absolved with only 2 Hail Mary's in penance because the priest never had strong feelings about young girls anyway.
Scene 7: Law enforcement catches on. Hitman creates a blues brothers' style massive police car crash while gunning down civilians on his slick Italian motorbike.
Scene 8: Time to sex it up to keep adolescent male interest. The next hit occurs in a brothel and/or strip club.
Scene 9: Turns out the barcode on the back of the Hitman's is the same one used for Magnum condoms at the local supermarket. This can only lead to a hilarious misunderstanding. Everyone is amused except for the Hitman. No one leaves the store alive.
You get the idea of how this movie should go.
Unfortunately the real Hitman movie wasn't nearly this entertaining. Instead it only included one actual hit and a tacked on love story that made the Notebook seem plausible. Sigh. At least it had gratuitous boob shots, that's something in its favor.
Response to "old moldy": You want the reader's digest version of my posts? It's in large font and it says "Pick up your dentures and don't forget to take your metamucil." That helpful enough for you?
What are you celebrating again? Morris Almond wrote a blog this week about how thrilled he was to play in his first NBA game. Of course he doesn't mention that he got exactly 2 minutes and 31 seconds of playing time and that his only "contribution" to the game were the 2 fouls he committed. Coincidentally he's been inactive a lot recently after that game.
In the spirit of this post, Harpring Sucks also successfully predicted that Morris Almond wouldn't be the answer this season and that Ronnie Brewer would be a revelation with playing time. Someday Harpring Sucks will be the pros instead of all those draft forecasters who claimed that Almond would come in ready to contribute immediately. Apparently immediately is a relative term and they meant "in relation to the age of the universe." I expect Almond to do something worth writing about by time I retire at this rate.
Bizarre name suggestions: Harpring Sucks favorite
Jackie Corbridge pointed out this week that the "Jazz" is a non-sensical club nickname for a basketball team located within the state of Utah and asked students to come up with potential new club nicknames.
Some of the choices:
"The Utah Coals would be the name that I would pick because I like collecting rocks and coal is the state rock."Point a) I'm glad to see that this student is interested in naming the team after a dirty-burning fossil fuel, apparently she's taken the name-change of the stadium to "Energy Solutions Arena" a little too literally.
Point b) Utah has a state rock? How much debate was there on this in the state legislature?
Point c) They picked coal? Coal!? I understand when you're picking among types of rocks the pickings are inherently slim but couldn't they have gone with something that isn't traditionally given as a gift by Santa to bad children?
"The Utah Honey Bees would be the name I would choose because being a Honey Bee means to work hard but do your best! "
Congratulations, you just named the team after a Girl Scout Troop. I'm sure Den Leader Sloan will help C.J. Miles get his crocheting merit badge over the weekend.
"I would name them the Utah Cutthroat because that is our state fish and I think it sounds really cool!"It's currently an automatic two game suspension if a player makes the throat slash motion towards the opposing bench. I think if you actually changed your team name to the Cutthroat David Stern would have to hire the Hitman, and not the one who gets all soft and weepy when a Russian chick in a dress is in the room.
Ronnie Price? What happened?: This is the most bizarre Sloan love affair in recent memory. After getting essentially no playing time for the entire season Sloan suddenly begins playing him for a solid 15 minutes and indicates that he's officially won the back-up point guard slot. Since the announcement is made Price immediately stops hitting shots and goes 1-13 from the field over the next three games. Sloan is currently (surprise surprise) indicating he's not changing his mind on the issue.
In completely unrelated news Gordan Giricek is shooting 40% from behind the 3 point line this season and 45% on all field goals.
What does this prove? Gordan must have slept with Sloan's sister a couple years ago or something. It seems like no matter what he does in terms of on-court performance Sloan will continuously prefer the Derek Fisher's and Ronnie Price's of the world. Maybe he vaguely reminds Sloan of Ostertag or something. This is all fine because the Jazz are playing well and we're only talking about a few minutes a night but it seems odd to steadfastly stick with Price over Giricek at this point, given that such decision is statistically completely indefensible.
Turns out Hollywood writers enjoy not working as much as I do: The New York Times published an interesting article this week on the ongoing writer's guild strike that is actively paralyzing nearly every television show on the major broadcast networks (you know, in case you thought that NBC was running a "best of the Tonight Show" feature recently just for kicks).
The primary pressure on any striking group is economic insofar as striking workers are generally either not earning any money or getting a small percentage of their earnings paid out through a union pension fund. Furthermore, striking workers understand that the strike is likely to hurt advancement as relations with the employer has chilled. In the case of the writer's strike, however, it seems that the dual roles held by a number of big name writers who have strong creative control over their progams is actually making the strike a business opportunity for a number of the non big-name writers because it's providing them an opportunity to pitch project ideas while they are picketing. Interestingly the PostSecret blog posted an image created by a striking writer indicating that the strike was the best thing that ever happened to her creatively because "I now have time to focus on writing something I love instead of churning out mediocre scripts."
Combined with opinion polls that indicate public opinion is largely swinging in favor of the striking writers, Hollywood must be alarmed to see that the striking workers are having fun instead of complaining about the pain of striking. If Sun Tzu ran the production companies he'd be actively attempting to take down this incredible surge of morale, but instead the production companies are casting reality shows starring former contestants of previous reality shows.
Hope you all enjoy watching 20 different versions of The Bachelor this summer. It seems the only people who are having their quality of life improved through the strike are the strikers themselves.
An interesting side effect of this strike, however, might come in a creative groundswell several months after the strike ends. If many writers are using this free time to create powerful networking opportunities to create high end products and other writers are writing their dream project because they're not tied down to a specific task right now it stands to reason we could see a television renaissance next season. On this point Harpring Sucks is actually optimistic. Anything that threatens to make it so that I don't have to suffer through another episode of Howie Mandel hosting "Deal or No Deal" is something I hope for.
Gross Omissions Part 2: Tim Ormond made a list of the Top 5 Jazz players who got away. Lucky for us he included Dell Curry but didn't put down Dominique Wilkins (whom the Jazz drafted and traded for cash) or Magic Johnson (whom the Jazz could have drafted if they hadn't given the Lakers the draft pick in exchange for signing Gail Goodrich away from them). In related news, jazzbots fails to increase in quality as writers gain experience.
Finally, a sad farewell: As I've already discussed with a few readers of this website, this will be my last post for Harpringsucks.com. During the last several months writing for this website has been immensely enjoyable for me and I've greatly appreciated the opportunity bordy gave me to initially make fun of Matt Harpring (and oh what a wealth of material he provides) and later to expand into discussion of Jazzbots and a whole host of other NBA related issues.
Fortunately even though we write for one of the smallest markets in the NBA and we have a definite writing style that appeals to a narrow niche of NBA fans, I have been fortunate enough to receive an offer from hoopsvibe.com to move my regular columns over there. This means that my departure from Harpringsucks.com does not mean that I am no longer writing, just that my articles will appear on a website with an audience that is approximately 200 times larger than that of Harpring Sucks. I have long maintained that I'm not the most clever writer on this website, nor the funniest, nor the most random. Frankly, I can think of at least 4 people here who could probably do a better job with a larger audience than me but as far as I can tell this is the power of dumb luck and merely being stubborn enough to pound out an article on a roughly weekly schedule.
I will always treasure the time I've spent with this website; after all everyone remembers their first time. The constant live blogging during the playoffs counts among the most enjoyable basketball viewing experiences I've ever had, and I'm thrilled that bordy allowed me to do pretty much anything I wanted even when it breached the bounds of good taste and class.
I sincerely hope this blog continues a strong internet presence in my absence and I encourage my fellow bloggers to keep churning out material. I'm not sure I could survive knowing that I was the yoko that broke up the Beatles.
Farewell Harpring Sucks....we'll always have penisaurus rex.
Presumably that's what those 
