Hide your women and children

Over the last 100 years there have been a number of incredibly alarming front page newspaper headlines that have horrified and shocked all who came into contact with them: "Hindenberg Crashes", "JFK Assassinated", "Titanic Sinks", and "Barbaro dies." All of those catastrophes, however, are dwarfed by today's headline in the Salt Lake Tribune which should have been more appropriately titled "Holocaust: Part Deux." The offending headline: "Sloan may start Harpring."

It's official, the sextagenarian should start reading his AARP magazine and start applying for social security, he's officially making decisions that can only be chalked up to senility. Sadly, the Tribune seems to be buying the riduclous stream of pro-Harpring propaganda. Next week's headline is bound to be "Benito Moussilini was merely unloved as a child."

Matt Harpring said he would be surprised if it actually happened.

But with the Jazz mired in a five-game losing streak that threatens to ruin their promising season, coach Jerry Sloan said he and his assistant coaches have "talked about" moving Harpring into the starting lineup for the first time all year when the Jazz play the Dallas Mavericks tonight at the American Airlines Center.

"We'll just have to look and see," Sloan said. "See if that's better for us."

Probably couldn't be much worse.

It's official, the Utah Jazz have decided that they need to join the growing number of teams tanking for the #1 pick in the draft. Unfortunately for them, that strategy doesn't work when you've already secured a winning record.

The only possible rationale for making such a move would be the "Utah needs to win the championship this season, play the veteran major minutes."

Such thinking is impermissably flawed. The reality is the Jazz have essentially a zero probability of winning the championship this season. At best they might win a round in the playoffs and give Dallas a good fight in the second round. No reasonable basketball fan can expect better out of this team. As a result, it's important that we use whatever opportunities we have to develop the talent that will actually be useful in 2-4 years when the championship push can occur. Harpring, a 30 year-old guy with creaky knees, isn't that guy. The people he's taking minutes from (Brewer, Millsap) might be. The reality is with Harpring there's no upside left to explore, he's been declining for 4 straight seasons, and the current version isn't good enough to make a meaningful difference in a championship run.

Furthermore, the Jazz by simply winning the division have exceeded expectations, there's no need to make some sort of last minute push to appease the fan base or critics who were given almost no hope of winning 50 games on opening day. All tiring the guy out by playing him nearly 40 minutes a game will do is make him (even) less effective come playoff time.

The Jazz have lost six of seven games since clinching the NBA's Northwest Division championship two weeks ago, and trail the Houston Rockets by 1 1/2 games in the race for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs

Part of the reason is that they often have been overmatched at the small forward position, where rookie Ronnie Brewer has been starting in place of injured Andrei Kirilenko. And with the Jazz about to face two All-Star small forwards - the Mavs' Josh Howard tonight and Phoenix's Shawn Marion on Saturday - at a time when they desperately need a victory, taking a chance on Harpring might be worth the risk to the rhythm of the rotation.

To say Brewer has been overmatched while starting recently is frankly a little silly. In part because he hasn't gotten the chance. In the 3 games he's played the results (and playing time) have been all over the map.

The first game he shot 5-7 from the field, scored 12 points, grabbed 3 rebounds, got an assist and a steal and committed no fouls. All in 18 minutes of playing time. In contrast, Harpring (who's actually been shooting well lately, must be spending extra time in the lay-up line) went 4-6 for 10 points, also had 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and 1 block in 30 minutes of playing time. He also accumulated 4 fouls in that time period. What I see is that the veteran leader who's hustling took nearly twice as long to achieve essentially the same production

The second game Brewer was rightly rewarded for a good game the night before and was given 33 minutes of playing time. Brewer went 7-9 from the field for 21 points, grabbed 4 rebounds, and stole the ball once. To be fair, he also had 3 turnovers. Harpring had 28 minutes and hustled extra-hard trying to preserve his spot in the rotation after a clear threat from Brewer the previous game. He responded with 6-10 shooting for 17 points, 8 rebounds, 1 steal, and 6 turnovers.

Despite having consecutive good games for a rookie, Harp must have given Brewer the stink-eye in practice because Sloan immediately pulled him after only 5 minutes in the next game and gave Harpring 37 minutes.

Taking Brewer out in favor of Harpring, even if it was important for the Jazz to win as much as possible right now, isn't abandoning a failed experiment. It's aborting the experiment before it even began.

It appears we may need a new edition of the IJSPD flow chart just for harpring related decisions. As of now, Sloan's perception of Harpring's competition for minutes appears to be completely disconnected with reality. Maybe Brewer needs to work on his "shuffle."