Dear Jazzbots, are you there? It's me. Sirkickyass.

When Ralph Wiley died, ESPN.com scrambled to find a new black writer who could speak credibly about the frequent race issues facing the NBA. Unfortunately the settled upon one Scoop Jackson who was previously primarily known for his work on SLAM magazine, a publication that is one of the primary contributors to inextricably tying up professional basketball with hip-hop culture. Jackson, unfortunately, celebrates the worst aspects of hip-hop culture and makes frequent bizarre predictions and proclamations. Somehow, he still has a job despite stunningly bad errors in judgment (one popular story is that he threatened to quit his job at SLAM magazine if they didn't put Allen Iverson on the cover while he was still at Georgetown, when the magazine did so the issue bombed and became the worst selling copy in the publication's history) and awful writing.

This week, Jackson wrote an article called "NBAipedia" that constituted a number of opinions about the upcoming season. Some samples of his "gems" of insight include predicting that Kim Kardashian will be the most desired woman in the NBA this season, detailing the most fashionable watches for NBA players, bemoaning that Nike discontinued a line of commercials featuring Lebron James, talking about new clubs in Miami, and telling his readers about Tiffany jewelry. At least he balances this all out by calling Kenyon Martin the last true power forward in the league; which is a little like calling Kathy Bates the last true Hollywood beauty.

In ESPN's NBA predictions series this week Jackson also indicated that Rasheed Wallace was the most important player in the league (when asked about these statements, Jackson replied only "everyone wrote hard"), picked Steve Francis (who received a DNP-coach's decision in the season opener) for most improved player, and indicates that the only thing wrong with the Bulls last year was that the coach wouldn't let them wear headbands. In a league where it is frequently asserted that there's a fundamental disconnect between the guys who can buy tickets and the hip-hop centered players and culture, Scoop Jackson is the primary villain.

Good thing ESPN decided to feature him this week. I'm sure his focus on all the worst aspects of the league really will help ESPN's ratings this season.

Bizarre and unrelated confessions: One Mueller daughter, while writing about how much she is looking forward to the upcoming season, bizarrely confesses to the many different methods she has used to sneak peeks at upcoming Christmas presents. I'm sure her parents are so proud.

I anxiously await her confession that she also steals her siblings' teeth and puts them under her pillow in hopes of fooling the tooth fairy.

A clue you should stop posting: Keith Haney flatly admitted this week that he had nothing to write and instead talked about how great Boston is. A member of the Mueller family also acknowledged that she was straining to come up with a decent topic. That's 2 jazzbots bloggers that have admitted they have nothing to say, we only have roughly 20 more to go.

I just can't wait to see what quote Laurie Nyland would open up with when she acknowledges her own uselessness. I'm going to suggest one by the immortal Joseph Conrad: "It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility."

He's being paid $1 million this season to blog: Morris Almond was left off the opening day roster in favor of Jarron Collins. This is somewhat like being told that you can't be in the Justice League because you're not good enough to replace Aquaman. Given that Almond was the Jazz first round draft pick, they have to make him do something. Enter jazzbots.com, where Morris Almond is the newest blogger.

Couldn't he have made himself useful in some way? Do the real players' laundry or something? As of right now he's getting outwritten by Annie Whittaker who could charitably be described as the Jarron Collins of Jazzbots. How embarrassing.

Gross Omissions: Tammy Rasmussen compiles a list of her favorite sports nicknames in a jazzbots post this week. Although she included some of the great sports nicknames like "The Round Mound of Rebound" most of her inclusions are lame. Let's be honest "King James," "Babe" Ruth, "Primetime," all feel generic or generally uncreative. The following omissions from her list are completely unconscionable.

Darrell "Dr. Dunkenstein" Griffith (extra shame because he was on the Jazz, so she really should have known)

Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins (extra points because he gave the nickname to himself)

Georges "Chicoutimi Cucumber" Vezina.

Marvin "The Human Eraser" Webster

Rod "He Hate Me" Smart (whose real name I actually had to look up because I only knew him as "He Hate Me")

Andre "Bad Moon" Rison

Chris "Pee Drinking" Paul (still a classic jazz game chant. They really need a graphic for this on the Jumbotron)

And a personal favorite that probably reveals that I was an economics major: New York Jets Mark Gastineau, Joe Klecko, and the rest of the early 1980s defensive line were collectively known as the "New York Sack Exchange."

Ron Artest sighted at Utah High School Football Game: Annie Whittaker reports that she was present for a rather large brawl in the stands at a local football playoff game. Sadly she remains unharmed enough to type.

Ticket Sales say differently: Karen Chatterton's students expressed well-wishes for the Jazz before the season began. One student writes "“It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, your fans are still rooting for you.” I'm sure that Larry Miller agrees after seeing a half-empty building frequently in the one season the Jazz went 26-56.

For absolutely no reason: The Madame's cat has a serious need to lose weight. Her belly drags on the ground when she runs, she manages to routinely take dumps that have to be hauled away by a bulldozer, and she's starting to develop a perceptible gravitational field. Alarmingly the cat is only gaining weight over time, to the extent that I'm convinced that a) the Madame is feeding her McDonald's double quarter pounders and b) if you were to shave her you could knit a XXL sweater out of the fur. The cat is about one more protein smoothie away from turning into this:

Since this is a cat that's clearly lost all self control, I have suggested that we motivate her the same way I motivate everyone: shame.

My theory is that if we tape several photographs of thins cats at her cat's eye level all around the Madame's apartment we can establish a negative body image of the "ideal" cat in this feline's brain. Additionally, I think it would be helpful to put the above picture of a morbidly obese cat right next to the cat's food bowl. Hopefully, using these methods, we can induce "catorexia."

Something has to happen soon. At this point I'm worried she could kill me just by passing wind.

Spoke too soon: Jonathan Kendrick did a feature this week on getting to know Kevin Lyde ... exactly one day before he was waived. So much for the Jazzbots having inside information as promised.

Punctuation gone crazy: The Mueller family (a favorite punching bag of Harpring Sucks) recently had a lengthy post which contained more consecutive question marks in one sentence than paragraphs in the entire article. Good thing, as she acknowledges later, she's "not one to answer any of those questions."

That was really enlightening Mueller family, thank you. Should have stuck to your previous admission that you had nothing to say rather than trying to force the issue.

Jazzbots gets professional broadcaster added to staff, stunningly become less credible: Tom Nissalke has started blogging for Jazzbots, Harpring Sucks cheers as this is sure to guarantee a wealth of new material in future posts. In this post he tells us how great a coach Jerry Sloan is. I'm thrilled we're getting coaching recommendations from a guy who was a former coach, even if his career record was 371-508.

Leerooooooooooooy Jeeeeennnnnnnnkins!: We've made a hobby out of picking on Matt Harpring, but nothing has ever reminded me of Harpring more than this youtube clip. While everyone tries to come up with a coherent plan for victory Matt "Leeroy Jenkins" Harpring just charges in looking to score. Fast forward to the 1:23 mark for one of the greatest battle cries in the history of everything.




Bad Idea: Jonathan Kendrick seems to suggest he likes Matt Harpring's chances of supplanting Ronnie Brewer in the starting lineup. Of course he also suggests that Jerry Sloan would play Gordan Giricek in the last few minutes of a game, leading me to believe that a) he hasn't actually watched a game in a few years or b) he was on mind-altering substances when blogging.

I'm going with option b, if for no other reason than this is better written than most of his posts and I feel like that's as good an explanation as any.

Early Rush to Judgment: After watching half of one game Jazzbots' Patrick Kinahan makes a spirited argument that Boozer and Deron Williams will be better than much-beloved John Stockton and Karl Malone.

In completely unrelated news, Kinahan also believed in October of 2001 that George W. Bush would be our most popular president ever, proclaimed that tech stocks couldn't lose in February of 2001, bought tons of canned goods in December of 1999, picked Howard Dean to win the Democratic nomination in September of 2003, and was convinced that invading Cuba with an undermanned force was a good idea.

Unfortunately "to write" wasn't an option: Laurie Nyland listed made a list of 10 things she learned during the Jazz first game of the season. Number 11 may well be that she has to pay David Letterman royalty checks for stealing his gimmick.

Among the things she "learned:" Officials suck, announcers are generally uninteresting, and Mehmet Okur played a bad game. I didn't even watch the game and I could have told you all of those things.

Laurie, by the way, is described as filling the position of "Jazz Wife." Why the Jazz thought we needed the perspective of someone who's a "Jazz Wife" is curious as it implies that if you're a wife you can't be a fan in your own right. It might make sense if she was married to a Jazz player, but I'm pretty sure they could all do better (although the Pillow Fort incident indicates that Brewer might settle for anyone). If I was the Madame I would demand a "Jazz Husband" position for gender equality purposes, but only the Madame is that crazy. Luckily I know she won't read this because she'll be feeding her cat twinkies.

Outright theft: Keith Haney doles out Halloween costume ideas. Good thing no one did that recently. Especially not on this site.

At least his costumes were all NBA themed, but he left some obvious NBA based costumes out. Examples: The Second-Round monkey on Tracy McGrady's back, a member of Stephen Jackson's entourage, Torrey Ellis (looks strangely like Deron Williams), and Larry Miller's elbow. Nothing's scarier than Larry Miller's elbow. Nothing.

Nothing.

Fan Player Evaluator

A HarpringSucks experiment

The concept is simple: following a Jazz game, you rate each of the players' performance on a scale of 1 to 10. The average Fan Rating is compiled and displayed on the site for all to enjoy. Ratings will be compiled on a per-user, per-game, and per-season basis. This is your chance to really let Harpring know (with numbers, on a site that he'll never see(until it's posted in the Deron forum)) how much he truly sucks. That'll show him.

You'll need to create an account, and report any bugs or suggestions to bordelais7. It IS a work in progress, and we hope to add more features as the season progresses (although, in reality, I'm pretty lazy, so...whatever).

Chuck Klosterman, Jazz Blogs, and Cocoa Puffs

On Friday, ESPN posted a gorgeously written Chuck Klosterman article. For ESPN, this is a change of pace from its usual NBA content which prominently features the likes of Greg Anthony and Scoop Jackson. Klosterman's premise is that the NBA is a league that is constantly in trouble because of its own preoccupation with its image. Our own Matt Harpring certainly operates as a microcosm of this observation when he posts pictures like this one on his web page:

Klosterman argues that the NBA's problems are not image-related but instead are premised upon simple realities about the game that effect the way people watch it. Although many of his points are well taken (especially his point about the unshared societal nature of NBA players and their fans) his argument about "potentiality destroying happiness" seems somewhat misplaced. In short, Klosterman states that people have an image of what basketball is in their brains (analogous to a platonic ideal of a basketball game) and that ideal is free flowing and showcases extraordinary athleticism on every play. When the game inevitably fails to live up to this ideal on a regular basis people tend to decry the game as not being fun to watch anymore. While this is clearly true for people who expect to watch poster-worthy dunks on every play, Klosterman misses something when he ascribes this problem to basketball specifically.

If this were truly the problem that led to some disenchantment with basketball, why wouldn't it affect other sports as well? Many think of football as the ultimate "smashmouth" sport but moments of true hard hitting tackles and goal line charges into the defensive line are the exception rather than the rule. Despite this football remains the most popular sport in America. Similarly, baseball games frequently aren't close one and two run contests in the final innings that produce high drama but that hasn't deterred from baseball's mystique, especially in October. As a result, basketball isn't the only sport that should suffer from a cognitive dissonance with what the eyes view while watching the games.

If any sport really suffers from a gap of what it is that people imagine the sport to be and what it actually is, it's boxing. In that sport everyone is waiting for the next Ali or a class of heavyweights who will smash each other's brains in with little regard for their own health. With the exception of only a few boxers or a few fights in the last several decades, I'm not certain that ideal sport has ever existed on a regular basis. And in that sense, Klosterman writes a great article but mis-aims his ideas. He must have something going for him though. His books have frequently disclosed the fact that enough women want him that he's frequently tempted into infidelity. A true accomplishment when you look like this:

An offer to mock we can't refuse: Annie Whittaker reported on jazzbots that Carlos Boozer would become the "Godfather" of this season's team. If Boozer is the Godfather (although our own LTV would probably have dubbed Raul Lopez the Godfather in past seasons based upon his weight) this raises the natural question of which Jazz players best fill the role of the Corleone sons.

Fredo Corleone: Matt Harpring. If Harpring's father was assassinated I'm sure the immediate response would be to try to retaliate, shuffle rapidly in the direction of the assassin, then fall over and yell Woop with one hand raised in the air. Sounds like Fredo to me.

Sonny Corleone: Andrei Kirilenko. Career killed by rival gang (the diabolical Sloan family). As a sidenote, Sloan is exactly the kind of guy who would kick someone in the face for good measure after shooting them dozens of times.

Micheal Corleone: Deron Williams. If we exceed the scope of the Jazz it's easiest to go with Stephon Marbury given that he's already said he wants to run away to Italy after helping Isiah brutalize the Knicks franchise.

White guys don't make good enforcers: Stanton Huntington points out that the Jazz don't have a real enforcer now that Karl Malone's elbows have retired. Harpring Sucks suggests Kevin Lyde start sharpening his elbows. Given his body shape it's hard to imagine he's going to be any good at actually playing basketball.

The best blog on the internet: Harpring Sucks gives the "Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century" blog a hearty recommendation. Behold the ferocious face-shelf:

Blogoetry fails to win Battle Rap: Josh Leavitt uses poetry to "call out" the Houston Rockets. Unfortunately his best insult is "Yao moves with the rapidity of Jell-O!" While the use of the word rapidity indicates he was trying to make his syllable counts match this time around he's not doing much in the way of combating stereotypes that the pigmentally-challenged can't rhyme. If he had ever watched a single episode of Nick Cannon's Wild N Out he'd understand that the best rhyme insults go after the way people look and their sexual prowess.

As a result, appropriate topics would have included Tracy McGrady's lazy eye, Yao Ming's equipment not being proportionately sized, Rick Adelman's moustache, Rafer Alston's lurid activities on the And-1 bus with "Escalade" and "The Professor," and Shane Battier's head looking like a pack of hot dogs. In no instance should Jello moving slowly enter the equation.

Mangled Metaphors: Cameron Hansen argues that Jerry Sloan's approach of being aloof and above the team is what makes him a good coach. Although we don't necessarily agree with this conclusion (we link to a site called retiresloan.com after all) Harpring Sucks would like to award Cameron Hansen with a special "our favorite mangled metaphor of the month" award.

The metaphor in its entirety is as follows:

An example of this I can think of is if you were to be sewing a sweater: You
want it to be sewn together well, but you don’t want the sewing needles sewn in
there. A coach should sew together his team well, but not be included in that
type of camaraderie. It is the coach’s responsibility to get the team to
function well. Jerry Sloan understands this concept. I still cannot believe he
has never won Coach of the Year. In my opinion, he has deserved it multiple
times.

I had no idea that sewing needles had camaraderie. In related news, Cameron Hansen is a student at the University of Utah whose English department is currently unranked by US News and World Report.

More and (likely) back to absurd lengths on Thursday.

The Season Can Start

The leaves have changed color, the air is crisp and cool, and the SLTrib has thrown out another article telling the reader how crucial Matt Harpring will be to the team's success. Yep, time for the season to get going.

Harpring's experience needed more than ever

Nice title, eh? And in fact, I'm inclined to agree. Now that his knee explodes like a party favor every time he takes more than two steps, I would suspect his experience is one of the only things he has to contribute.

Even with the playoff experience from a year ago, the Utah Jazz are still a fairly young team, which makes Matt Harpring and his creaky knees that much more important to the team's success.

Nothing like adding three modifiers to a sentence that undermine your first point: "even with the playoff experience from a year ago," "fairly young," and "creaky knees." Though, to be fair, I guess "Matt Harpring" works, too.

Whether he is playing or not, Harpring is recognized as being Utah's steadying force in recent seasons. Now that Derek Fisher is gone, and the team's two key players in Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams are still growing into their roles, Harpring's presence on the team is viewed as more important than ever.

Whether he is playing or not? Seriously? I need to dig up some of those post-game interviews from when Harpring was injured and fine where Deron claims, "We were struggling out there on the court, but I felt as if a presence lifted me and the team, and we did soar like eagles. Surely, this was the work of Matt Harpring's steadying influence." And I find it hard to believe that the team's "steadying influence" is a guy that can't stay on his feet for more than a minute and a half at a time.

And I agree, the team will miss Derek Fisher's steadying influence. Nothing like a guy that shoots around 40%, gets lit up by opposing SGs, and once blew a 3-on-0 fast break in a crucial playoff game to steady a team. I guess he did bring his suck with consistency.

"If you look at all the teams that have been successful in this league, the most successful are the ones with guys who are 30 years old," Utah coach Jerry Sloan said. "He is one of the few for us who has been through some tough games and experience. He gives us great minutes off the bench, and I'm sure there are times he'd like to play more, but he doesn't complain and he knows his role."

Oh dear. Where to begin.

First, Coach Sloan, I'd like to propose that the thirty-year-old rule is somewhat skewed by the fact that those 30+-year-olds have tended to be Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal. I know, I know, they're grizzled veterans and all, but I think a minimal amount of research might show those players had a good deal of success before turning 30.

Then again, that All-Star Lakers lineup of Malone/Shaq/Kobe/Payton would probably prove me wrong. All kinds of grizzled leadership on that team. Too bad they were defeated by the Detroit Pistons, who ran out:

Chauncey Billups, age 27
Rip Hamilton, age 26
Rasheed Wallace, age 29
Tayshaun Prince, age 24
Ben Wallace, age 29

Huh. That doesn't make sense. Perhaps, just perhaps, the success of teams has less to do with veteran leadership and age than, oh, talent?

Of course, good ole Jerry didn't stop there. What in Pleiades does "He is one of the few for us who has been through some tough games and experience" mean? Have the rest of the team not been through those tough games? Haven't AK and Collins been through pretty much all of those tough games "for us" too? After all, AK's been around longer with the Jazz than Harp (I wonder if the SLTrib writers even realize that). And how is he one of the few that has "been through...experience"? I don't even know what that means, so I can't even attack it. Of course, that has been an approach often taken by Jerry in past years.

He doesn't complain, and he doesn't say much about anything else either. Harpring prefers to let other teammates be the vocal leaders, handle the media interviews or create controversy. He prefers to show up and simply play basketball, and play it hard.

First "Harpring plays hard" media reference for the year: check.
First "he's a great leader though he doesn't lead" argument: check.
First "he doesn't complain" though he's been the point man in whining about players not passing him the ball for years: check.

"The coach is there to coach, and if I see something on the court, obviously I'll say something, but I'm not one to just talk to talk," Harpring said. "For me, to play at the level of play I want to play at, I need to stay on my own focus. Besides, you can get caught into a lot of trash talk too if you're out there talking."

I hope the younger players are learning from the experience Harpring has gone through. First, leave everything to the coach. That way, there's no negative repercussion from other players or the coaching staff. Second, to play at a high level, keep your own focus, don't worry about a team. Third, make bizarre non-sequitirs about trash-talking when the question is obviously about talking to your own players. Fourth, get articles written about how the preceding three in combination make you the team leader.

Harpring developed his quiet style by following the veterans at Georgia Tech and then in the pros as a rookie.
"I always respected the ones that didn't just say stuff," he said. "They said stuff when they needed to but weren't yapping all the time. As a young player, when you look at guys you want to emulate and respect, you look at the ones who work hard, and when they say something, it's meaningful. That is how I approached it too."

First "Harpring Self-Referential Works Hard Comment": check.

Have to say, he sure is a coherent talker. "I always respected the ones that didn't just say stuff." How true, Matt. How true.

Sloan considers Harpring valuable for two areas - his immediate impact on the court and his impact he has on the younger players in the Jazz organization. Second-year forward Paul Millsap said he studied and tried to make the same kinds of cuts and screens Harpring did.
"You learn from watching the way he is aggressive, and it makes you want to go out there and do the same thing," Millsap said. "Last year I was grouped together with him as one of the bangers, and that was good, it's a good role. It says you are out there being aggressive."

Well, Paul, don't get too caught up. For one thing, you were grouped as a banger because you also did something we called "playing defense." You see, it's possible to be aggressive in ways other than "cutting and screening so someone will give me the damned ball." But then again, if preseason is any indication, Millsap's learning his lessons from Harp. I think all of his assists came from accidentally dropping the ball in the direction of a teammate.

Harpring averaged 11.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 25.5 minutes last year. But more important than the stats he brings is his solid, consistent play.

Which, arguably, would be reflected in those stats.

*smacks forehead*

And as far as consistency goes, Harpring's month-by-month splits from last season in FG%:

.440/.487/.506/.481/.451/.586

Nice and even contribution.

"He is the banger," teammate Andrei Kirilenko said. "He can shoot too, but he fights hard on the floor and is a great quality banger, always aggressive and always puts pressure on the offense. Even though he doesn't score all the time, he is around the basket and being aggressive to the basket. In the NBA you need those kinds of players."

Translated: "GET ME OUT OF HERE *sob*"

Really, though, this is a straightforward little quote, though I do love, "Even though he doesn't score all the time..."

How much banging he'll be available to do still is questionable, as he sat out the preseason games because the recuperation from offseason knee surgery has gone slower than expected.

I guess someone could always ask Mrs. Harpring how much banging they expect him to do in the next few weeks, if she's not busy helping some other pregnant mother have a traumatic birth experience.

And, of course, no one in SL seems to want to ask why Harpring chose right at the end of the off-season to have his surgeries (and yes, it's plural).

Harpring, who had knee surgery before the 2005-06 season too, knows it's easier to push a defender around the court than rush his return.
"Hopefully I can come back sooner rather than later," he said. "I don't think it will hurt me much once I'm back. The biggest thing is getting my strength up so I can do what I like to do."

Yes, Harpring knows all about pushing defenders around the court. He also knows all about being the defender pushed around the court. But, jeez, there's a wealth of information in that last quote. I'll try and provide a brief explanation for each chunk.

"Hopefully I can come back sooner rather than later": Harpring would prefer to return to the team early, not late. This counters those that thought he didn't want to return until the end of the season.

"I don't think it will hurt me much once I'm back": Once his knee is healed to the point that he can play, he expects it won't hurt to the point he can't play.

"The biggest thing is getting my strength up so I can do what I like to do": This one's a bit complicated. First, he has to get his strength back "up" so his knee won't blow out like an old set of tires. Second, he want to do so because he would like to do whatever it is he likes to do. Though that is yet unclear, I expect it involves jogging halfheartedly downcourt on defense after blowing a layup, transitioning to a full-blown shuffle when he realizes his "man" has the ball open from 15 feet, pinwheeling his arms and falling down 10 feet shy of the player as he shoots the ball, not boxing out as he leaps to his feet and sprints to his basket, standing under the basket yelling "woo!" as the other players scramble for the rebound, giving whichever player has the ball the stinkeye when they don't throw him the full-court pass, prancing around the basket while slipping screens and posting up, "woo"ing until given the ball, blowing the open layup, and then giving the stinkeye, again, to whoever threw him the ball.

Get well soon, Matt. We need you.

NBA Power Rankings and inevitable mockery of others

Apology: I understand this is a full day late. For that I apologize and offer a full refund.

Beginning of Actual Article: Given that next week marks the official start of the season it's probably an appropriate time to actually release a set of power rankings for the upcoming season. Every year it seems that the major sports media outlets release power rankings earlier and earlier in an effort to "scoop" the other sports outlets. The actual value of the "scoop" is dubious given that it is essentially a race to have an opinion that will almost surely be proven ridiculous by the end of the opening week of the season. This year ESPN released its set of power rankings on October 1, 2007 ... BEFORE the pre-season had even begun and we knew the health status of many key players on these teams. In an era where the 2008 Presidential race kicked off prior to the 2006 election this isn't stunning that NBA columnists would start jumping the gun too, but I'm sure ESPN regrets putting out their rankings so early after watching Memphis go 5-2 in the preseason thus far (ESPN ranked them 21st) and watching Miami go 0-7 (ESPN ranked them one slot above Memphis at 20th). Harpring Sucks is currently trying to contact Marc Stein's mistress to determine what else he finishes far too early. Who am I kidding, Marc Stein's picture indicates he's far more likely to be a pederast than have a mistress.

Another beef I have with the rankings is that they are nearly always ranked in descending order with the #1 team at the top. Clearly ESPN has no sense of suspense. With that in mind, we rank teams in ascending order.

#30. Philadelphia 76ers: I like that other AI as much as the next guy, but the reality is that this team has exactly four players that you look at and think "he might hurt us on any given night." Right now the team consists of Andre Iguodala, Andre Miller, Kyle Korver, Samuel Dalembert, and a group of guys who would challenge for playing time on Maccabi Tel Aviv. Plus they waived Derrick Byars this week before he could play a single regular season game. This means that unless he gets picked up by a team this season, Vanderbilt will have a 4th consecutive season without an alumnus in the NBA (the last one was the illustrious Dan Langhi). This angers Harpring Sucks, and thus they get the spiteful 30th ranking designation. Just remember, in a way its almost good to be the worst because if you're gonna be bad you shouldn't bother to make any pretension at being good. In that sense, they're the best at sucking. I'm sure their mothers are proud.

#29. Seattle Supersonics: Sadly Jerome James would actually make them better at this point. On the positive side they still have that Saer Sene guy. Thank god the Jazz dodged the bullet on that one.

#28. Minnesota Timberwolves: Although I'm awaiting the inevitable Bill Simmons "Ewing Theory" column with regards to the Wolves, I also realized they just traded two of the their top 7 players for Antoine Walker. Also, the year isn't 1998 and Antoine Walker hasn't been useful in two full seasons. Stunningly, Juwan Howard wasn't involved in this deal after trying to beg his way out of Minnesota all summer. At this point, he probably feels like a cheerleader trapped at a summer camp right before the slasher shows up.

#27. Los Angeles Clippers: Last year the team showed just how much it relied on Sam Cassell's "I have giant testicles" dance. This year they're without Elton Brand. Thankfully, they'll have more than their fair share of losses to make up for it.

#26. Sacramento Kings: Any time the loss of Bonzi Wells triggers a large swing in the win-loss column you know your team is walking a tightrope. Lucky for them, Ron Artest is promising stability and good behaviour for approximately the 27th year in a row.

#25. Charlotte Bobcats: No Adam Morrison and no Sean May means that you're going to see a lot of Walter Herrmann. While this is good for fans of sketchy looking german dudes (and boy am I ever) this is not good for fans of the Charlotte Bobcats.

#24. Miami Heat: They went 0-7 in the pre-season. Shaq is hurt, Wade is hurt, and they just traded for Ricky Davis. I may adopt this as a third team to follow because emotions are going to run high this season and that is sure to lead to someone getting shot or Shaq sitting on someone till they suffocate.

#23. Portland Trailblazers: No Oden, but LaMarcus Aldridge will play well and Brandon Roy is coming off a rookie of the year campaign. I just wish Zach Randolph was still there. For some reason watching some guy with Bell's Palsy inexplicably score points in bunches on perfectly healthy physical specimens just kills me. It won't be the same in New York where his magnificence will necessarily be muted by Isiah Thomas and Stephon Marbury.

#22. Milwaukee Bucks: Injuries were devastating last season, but the reality is that guaranteeing playing time to Yi (whom the Milwaukee fans already are unimpressed with) and getting back guys of the Bobby Simmons ilk don't exactly make a team a championship contender. On the positive side, their Coach should fit in nicely with the Polish population.

#21. Indiana Pacers: This team is going to be better than people think. They've been winning games in the pre-season without Jermaine O'Neal and they have had more time to integrate Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy onto the squad. Those guys were always trapped on the wrong team in Golden State (do you really think Moses wanted to pass to the dorky white guys who went to Notre Dame and Duke) and should be better this season.

#20. Atlanta Hawks: The Young Hawks will have lots of talent and young draft picks and fail to win many games. Just another orbit around the globe for Atlanta fans who are presumably unimpressed they have turned into the Eastern versions of the the late 90's Clippers teams. What they really need is to this guy as an assistant coach to "make them big." Then they could win games.

#19. Los Angeles Lakers: They brought in Derek Fisher to help them win games. Given his shooting percentages last season I'm thinking his daughter has better depth perception at this point.

#18. New York Knicks: Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry have to win some games together. Especially in the east.

#17. Memphis Grizzlies: Another team that will be better than people think. Pau Gasol is back, Jaun Carlos Navarro will play major minutes, and the Isaac Hayes Experience is just down the street from the arena. Sounds like a team in need of love to me.

#16. Golden State Warriors: I love 'em but I'm inclined to believe last season's run was more fluke than foundation to a good team. Considering Don Nelson fought with the team all offseason because he wanted his playoff bonus guaranteed instead of earning it I'm guessing he agrees with me.

#15. New Orleans Hornets: Chris Paul's stats remain gaudy, except for in the "games played" category. That being said, I just don't see it working out for the Hornets this season. Basketball Karma will continue to screw with George Shinn until he sells the team as punishment for taking the team away from Charlotte.

#14. Toronto Raptors: The smart money thinks this team is in for a regression. Remember that this team also made Mike James look like a top-10 player in the NBA and well know how that turned out. I'm thinking Calderon is bound to return to earth and this team is one injury away from a total collapse. Besides, I think the playoffs showed this team really wasn't as good as the Nets last season. That being said, the Mueller family are sure to be Raptors fans because one of the best players is named Andrea (more on this below).

#13. New Jersey Nets: I may end up regretting saying they'll do this well now that Vince Carter got paid. He's got the most famous on-off switch in the NBA and with no prospects for another large long-term contract for his career I'm frankly stunned he didn't show up to training camp weighing 400 pounds.

#12. Denver Nuggets: The Bench looks real thin, they're relying on Chucky Atkins for far too long, Carmelo Anthony has a painting of himself as Jesus, AI doesn't like to practice, and Kenyon Martin is sure to break another bone this year. This team has built something shiny that looks pretty on paper, but unfortunately it's a house of cards.

#11. Gilbert Arenas: Not the Washington Wizards. Gilbert by himself. As he reveals, he's already taken to shooting the rookies with paintball guns as part of orientation. In my mind that makes him larger than the team. Also, this team had serious injury issues last year and still made the playoffs. I'm thinking they'll only be better this season.

#10. Cleveland Cavaliers: Frankly, this ranking is probably too high. Coming off their trip to the NBA finals they've got two key players holding out (which means that a guy named Boobie will be playing major minutes) and have gone 1-5 in the preseason. Not good signs for a team that relies on making things as easy for Lebron as possible.

#9. Detroit Pistons: I think this is the year the bottom falls out and we start hearing about how the team is no longer contending. After hearing all season that they might blow the team up if they didn't make the finals they decided to keep the band together and trumpet Amir Johnson as being the guy who was going to bring them out of it. And yes, you just read that last sentence correctly. Joe Dumars is banking on Amir Johnson as the future. And yes, he's also won an Executive of the Year award before.

#8. 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.

#7. Orlando Magic: They're 6-1 in the preseason and just upgraded from Grant Hill to Rashard Lewis. Although Lewis has an insane salary that will prevent them from getting better in the future, right now they're looking good. Of course this is Orlando so the odds that one of their best players leaves for another town or goes down with career crippling injuries is high. Basketball Karma clearly hates the Disney corporation.

#6. Utah Jazz: Harpring Sucks.

#5. Chicago Bulls: This team is the new version of those 90s Knicks teams. They'll play good defense, be sort of slow, beat teams down, have a bunch of good players but no truly GREAT players, and never win a championship. It was, of course, the Bulls that was always the foil for those 90s Knicks teams. Basketball Karma is a bitch.

#4. Dallas Mavericks: You just can't win a championship when your coach sounds like a cross between a munchkin and a gummy bear.

#3. Boston Celtics: This team won't be quite as good as some people think, especially towards the end of the season when Garnett, Allen, and Pierce's legs start to give out from playing 40 minutes a night. That being said they're undoubtedly an Eastern Conference contender.

#2. Phoenix Suns: They'll always score slightly more points than they give up...until they play the Spurs.

#1. San Antonio Spurs: Defending champs and nothing has changed. Presumptive #1.

Parent-Teacher Conferences will be painful this year: Karen Chatterton's sixth grade class contributed their ideas on how their lives would be different if their fathers were NBA players. Shockingly, all of them essentially acknowledged they'd prefer it if their father was a professional basketball player. I can't wait until Parent-Teacher Conference time when Ms. Chatterton has to explain to parents why she's reinforcing the idea that her students would be happier if they had someone else as parents. That should be fun.

My personal favorite comment reveals a lot about the social status of this particular class

"We would be able to get another boat and my dad probably would not have the
friends from work. I would be able to go to all of the games.”

Another boat! Another boat?! Why? So Mom can pilot one (badly because she's a woman) while dad smugly drives his faster and more competently?

Graduation!: I have an annoucement that will shock and awe all of you. I'm proud of our own little Laurie Nyland. After several consecutive weeks of making fun of her writing style for being sophomoric she didn't begin her blog post this week with either a definition or a quote. It was a stunning tour de force that honestly floored me when it happened. It was just as stunning as Bernadette Peters pulling out the trumpet to finish a love song on the Beach in the Jerk. If I could fit my arms around her (she looks large in her 10 pixel by 10 pixel photo so I use the conditional) I would give her a giant hug. Congratulations Laurie Nyland, you may score decently on the writing portion of the SAT now.

As long as we're being positive I'm announcing that Alan Hinckley gets a pass this week because he's admitted to going to a Dio Concert, and, as discussed on this very website during the playoffs, Dio Rules!

I wonder who they're taking about?: The Mueller family chose to call out "critics" of jazzbots in a post this week. Gee, who would possibly be critical of the high quality of posts that the Muellers come up with? Certainly not innocent little us.

Unfortunately their sole argument justifying the existence of the blog is that because there are so many people at amateur hour on their website they occasionally come up with inane questions such as "Why does Deron Williams have so many tattoos." Besides the fact that this is essentially a variation on the "million monkeys with typewriters producing Hamlet" scenario, the example she chose was terrible. That topic is literally their best defense as to how they come up with interesting things to talk about? That one? Really? Most of his tattoos are self explanatory. Stuff like a basketball in the state he's from, his initials, and "no guts no glory." What's to explain? This would be like justifying a political blog by saying "we ask questions like 'why do politicians wear suits?'"

Predictably the comments to the post are all supportive...and all by other jazzbots posters who apparently also don't like their shit show being exposed for what it is. Harpring Sucks tried to comment, but it was removed by jazzbots censors. Harpring Sucks has never removed any comments to our blog posts because we play fair and actually are a place for fans to talk about the team and basketball. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about a website that doesn't permit criticism of their bloggers. Interestingly that was the same media policy employed by Stalin.

It's just so true!:

Blogoetry fails to inspire class-based revolution: Josh Leavitt submitted another poem that appears to assert that the reason he's a Jazz fan is because the Jazz play for the working man and teams like L.A. play for the bourgeoisie. In particular, he writes: "Every victory a battle won for the lower classes. Those with callused hands and seen as living 'backwards'. "

Apparently he Mr. Leavitt hasn't seen the Jazz ticket prices recently. Either that or he thinks he's writing about an independant baseball league team. Considering he attempts to rhyme "dessert" with "unheard" I'm not putting reality altering drugs beyond the scope of possibility.

Strained Analogies: An actual paragraph from a Tammy Rasmussen post in which she compares a jazz game to a hunting trip where she slaughtered a deer.

Now, comes the fun part of the hunt (game). Like any hunt (game) there is more
than just shooting the prey (basket). You still have to pack it in (finish the
game). Well now what, we were in my Trailblazer (ESC) and it was packed with
kids (fans). How were we going to bring it home (win the game)? That is when
everyone (the team) pitched in and brought it up the hill (home stretch) and
loaded it in the car (won the game). Well, the hunt (game) is over and it was
another successful year (season). I realized that it wasn’t something that I
could have done on my own as hunting (basketball) takes more than one person to
make it a success.

Wow (and) I (thought I) used a lot of (paren)thetica(l) statements. I'd say that she really sacrificed readability but I don't think anyone was interested in what she had to say anyways.

Give that man some tapioca: JR Stewart talks about the old days when the Jazz sucked and no one went to the games. One gets the impression he actually preferred those days to winning games. Given that he's jazzbots oldest blogger, maybe this explains the existence of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

David Stern's wet dream: If there was ever any doubt that jazzbots is just another cog in the NBA's marketing machine Herr Stern has made sure that the Mueller family posted an extensive ad for the WNBA. You remember the WNBA right? That league that shows their games on Lifetime? On second thought I don't think any lesbians read this blog so it's likely no one has any idea what I'm talking about.

The title of her post is also unfortunate (WNBA vs. NBA) because it places the two leagues in opposition to each other and that's a contest the women's league can never win. She might as well have described World War II as "Poland vs. Germany."

Unfortunate colloquialism: Tammy Rasmussen reports that her evening activities include "picking up girls and dropping them off." Harpring Sucks crack legal team reports solicitation of sexual activity is still illegal in the state of Utah.

Boozer wishes he could do this on defense: Although Japan's crime rate is actually declining, the New York Times has reported that Japan's citizens fear crime more than ever. As a result, fashion designers have begun capitalizing on this fear by designing clothing that is designed to camouflage the wearer in an urban environment by allowing them to blend in with their surroundings. While camouflaging yourself in the wild involves wearing patterns that look cool enough that people wear them around anyway as a fashion statement, lets just say that blending in to the average street corner makes you look a little silly.

It's official. Japan is an old-school Warner Brother's cartoon.

Follow your dreams: Karen Chatterton reports one of her students wants to work in the ESA's food court. As least he knows what kind of an education he's getting.

Equal time female genital-based dinosaur: The Madame is a Title IX fiend (an interest that is apparently only shared by Bob Ley on "Outside The Lines) and noted that my penisaurus rex costume idea was really only a costume suitable for use by a male and that as a result my last column favored males. While I would debate the point (word is that penisaurus rex LOVES the ladies) I will acknowledge that I could have provided equivalent female based dinosaurs. With that in mind I suggest three more genital-based dinosaur costumes to bring the total up to two each for male and female readers.

For the ladies: Vaginaraptor and the Bruised Cervixsaurus (The latter would make a great tandem costume with a male dressed as a penissaus).

For the boys: Cockateratops. I'll give you one guess what the horns should be.

Format change: You hated us once a week before, and now you’ll get a double dose. You may have noticed that this blog entry has been absurdly long each of the last two weeks. Sorry. I understand that the standard for how long an entry should be should roughly correlate to the length of one poop so that you feel comfortable bringing your laptop into the bathroom. I have far exceeded that and I apologize. Well you no longer have to hold that deuce until Thursday, we’re going for the jazzbots blog roundup (and more) semi-weekly with entries on Monday and Thursday from here on out. We’ll also be expanding the number of blogs covered because, get this, jazzbots isn’t the only completely absurd jazz blog out there. I’m sure you’re stunned.
See you Monday.

Breaking News: Larry Miller slightly crazy.

Occasionally we hear odd stories about metrics that the Utah Jazz use that no other team cares about. During the playoffs, much was made about how much Jerry Sloan values "deflections" because they disrupt the offensive plays of other teams and lead to worse shots or require the team to restart their play with less time on the shot-clock. While deflections seemed like an odd thing to keep track of in terms of raw numbers (Harpring Sucks speculated that that Tyrone Corbin's sole job was to track deflections ... oh and bring some much needed diversity to the coaching staff), AOL has done a piece on what is undoubtedly the weirdest stat used by an NBA owner regularly: batting average. While the use of batting average has been mentioned in the Utah media before, it had (thankfully) been ignored by the national media because it sort of makes Larry Miller look a little crazy. After all, how often does an owner of the team use a stat that is blatantly associated with another sport to rate his own players? People would laugh if Miller started saying he was rating his players by their "Yards per reception," "Tackles," or "Golden Snitches Caught." As a result, I have no idea why he thought it would be any different to talk about batting average. Clearly the decision to disclose this "metric" was as ill-considered as his decision to wear those shorts.

While some have indicated that the metric as formulated by LHM works pretty well for the top end (although it does rate David Lee as the 8th best player in the NBA) I think we should see how it evaluated Jazz players last year. Maybe this will finally explain Jarron Collins career.

Carlos Boozer: .461

Paul Millsap: .310

Andrei Kirilenko: .297
Mehmet Okur: .289

Gordan Giricek: .284

Deron Williams: .277

Ronnie Brewer: .210
Matt Harpring: .205

Dee Brown: .147

Rafael Arujao: .140

Derek Fisher: .135

Jarron Collins: .111

CJ Miles: -.075

Putting aside the hilariously negative rating that Larry Miller's "batting average" stat gives to CJ Miles (who happens to share a name with an asian bikini model, frankly I suspect I'd accept a trade for the model) this metric actually raises serious questions about how the Jazz use players. Interestingly, Jerry's Kids (a fitting nickname for Harpring, Fisher, and Collins) rank near the bottom of the team. While we've long been saying that Sloan used them far more than their level of play justifies it appears that Larry Miller should agree given that his metric justifies burying them very near the end of the bench. Curiously, it also indicates that Miller has essentially destroyed his bargaining position by essentially offering a max contract already to a player that he believes is only the 6th best player on the team. Also, it shows that even though AK had an awful season last year and the Jazz have publicly told him he's not earning his money, Larry must believe that he was Utah's 3rd best player last season and, by Larry's breakdown of the batting average stats, was a near all-star.

All of this raises the following question: If Larry's metrics say that Harpring, Fisher, and Collins suck and Jerry Sloan plays those guys far disproportionately to their production why is Larry such a dogged supporter of Sloan? Sounds to me like Larry should believe that the Jazz would be better off with someone else. Someone who wouldn't have kept Giricek in the dog-house the last three seasons for example. So why does he keep him around? My theory is that he thinks he's pretty, but that's a whole other column.

Blogoetry still sucks: Joshua Leavitt continues to write crappy jazz-based poetry for jazzbots. Stunningly he's actually getting worse, this time eschewing any real structure or coherent syllabic-rhyming scheme. One assumes he learned to write poetry in Jackie Corbridge's english class (in other news, a google search for "Jackie Corbridge" currently returns Harpring Sucks blasting her woeful poetry teaching skills higher than her staff page at her elementary school. I'm sure her family is so proud). In my mind, he's the classic example of what happens when people are too positive: they keep doing something they suck at because someone 5 years ago said they thought it was good. Here's a newsflash: your poetry is reminiscent of Herbert Hoover's attempts to manage the economy. Soon I'm going to start assuming that sucking so badly is done purposefully and that you're some sort of performance artist. Even if that is the case, they don't get laid either. Sorry dude, time to find a new gimmick. Maybe you could grow facial hair like this guy:

Would that make Frank Layden Salieri?: The Mueller family compares Jerry Sloan to Mozart and argues that Andrei Kirilenko should be paying money to play for him. Apparently Mozart repeatedly failed to win the composer of the year award. Who knew?

Most stunningly, the Muellers offer Antoine Carr and David Benoit as evidence that Jerry Sloan makes good players out of bad players. David Benoit? What do they think he looked like before Jerry Sloan got to him? If he was any worse the basketball would have been a potentially lethal weapon every time he shot.

The Charles Barkley Memorial "I aint no role model" award: Karen Chatterton asked her 6th grade class to answer the question "How are the Utah Jazz team members an asset to our community?" Unfortunately, no student answered "Ronnie Brewer teaches us to remember to practice safe sex by stopping for condoms when taking a stripper back to the hotel." Similarly, these ill-educated students didn't bring up Carlos Boozer's contributions to the economy through his frequent visits to Best Buy. Instead, they gave answers like:

Ryan wrote: “They are a positive influence to the city because they help support
kids in reading and literature. Since they do that, the kids think,oh, reading
must be cool since the Jazz do it.”

I question how many children are following AK's lead by purchasing dime-store Russian novels.

“The Jazz are a big help to the community because they inspire little kids
everywhere. My little brother is obsessed with Carlos Boozer. I mean, they look
up to the team and they are inspired to work hard and be just like them.” -
Logan

In related news, Logan's brother rubs chicken grease on his forehead every night in hopes of looking more like his idol in the morning.

Unoriginal blogging: Keith Haney makes an extended Jazz/Star Wars comparison. What a fantastic idea! No one's ever done something like that before.

Besides outright theft, Mr. Haney also centers his blog article around a questionable premise: the Utah Jazz pre-season is exciting because there's nothing else interesting going on right now in the world of sports. You know, unless you count the baseball playoffs and the fact that at the time he wrote this two 5-0 teams in the NFL were about to square off.

He reasons that the NFL is boring because the AFC championship game will be the only thing that matters. Apparently he stopped watching the NBA playoffs after the Spurs-Suns series concluded, won't vote after the Democratic primary this year, and doesn't wrap Christmas presents because he already knows what's in there so what's the point?

We give Alan Hinckley the finger: Alan Hinckley apparently likes it when we make fun of his blog posts. Well we won't give you the satisfaction Mr. Hinckley! Not even to point out that the essential premise of your first paragraph is false because Jazz fans booed John Stockton lustily on draft night.



Take that! I'm sure you feel the sting of being so lowly we refuse to even acknowledge you.

Grandma fans?: For some reason Annie Whittaker writes a passionate appeal to "grandma fans." Unfortunately she's not talking about people like you and me who take an unhealthy interest in older women. Instead she's talking about literal grandmothers who happen to also be jazz fans.

Interestingly she goes on to claim that grandma fans are the most vocal and passionate fans around. The only game I've ever been to with my grandmother she was passive, only said "goodie" after Utah baskets, and I'm positive that she broke a hip when she tried to stand up after a three point shot. Ultimately she died when a Matt Harpring roguish grin made her heart flutter.

Frankly, this is my reason for being a jazz fan. They cleanse the earth of too many old people. Besides, who wants Energy Solutions Arena smelling vaguely of denture cream anyways?

Halloween Costume Ideas: This year I'm undecided as to what to dress as for Halloween and I'm currently tossing around a number of jazz-themed and non jazz-themed costumes. Everyone knows that the cleverness of my costume will determine the likelihood that I will be deemed attractive by any partygoers any place I should happen to turn up and that this will directly effect the odds of the Madame allowing me to go for the threesome attempt. Halloween is my birthday after all so I think she owes me something. Feel free to steal any of these:

1. Oscar the Grouch: Requires extensive preparation because you have to be willing to cut the bottom out of a garbage can and attach suspenders to the insides so that you don't drop the can all night. On the positive side you can ask women if they've always wanted to know what Oscar looked like "below the waist." As far as I can tell there is no evidence that Oscar ever wore clothes under there so feel free to take liberties with the costume idea.

2. Derek Fisher's daughter: There are a number of directions to take this one. All of them are likely to get you punched in the face. If you have the balls to do this in the greater Utah area I want pictures.

3. The Incredible Hulk: Simple and low-cost, all you have to do is paint your body green and wear nothing but tattered pants. This is only recommended in one of two situations. You either have to be a) incredibly thin so that the very concept of you being the incredible hulk is patently absurd or b) incredibly obese so that you can feign innocence as to knowing that the incredible hulk was supposed to be hulky AND muscular.

4. For the lady readers: The woman that Dee Brown, Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, and Paul Millsap allegedly took home to the Portland hotel. Bring condoms. We all know that for most women Halloween is just another excuse to dress like a tramp anyways.

5. A pillow fort: Self-explanatory for those who follow the Jazz.

6. The Gorton's Fisherman: Another simple costume that will instantly recognizable and no one else at the party will be dressed like you.

7. Flesh Gordon: As an added bonus you could dress a pet up as one of the monsters Flesh Gordon encounters. The penisaurus

And if you think this whole segment was just a thinly-veiled excuse to post the diagram of the penisaurus rex, I plead guilty.

New Advertising Slogan: The Mueller family points out that Jazz fans should be thankful because our team is better than Seattle. Isn't this sort of like being thankful for your health because you know a guy with leprosy? Or thankful that you have money every time you see a homeless guy? Or feel good about your sexual prowess because your 35 year old brother lives on your parents couch and plays Everquest all day? I mean, it's easy to feel good about yourself when you're comparing yourself to one of the worst teams in the league. By this logic, even Clippers fans should feel good because, hey, they're not the Hawks. All that being said, I think "we're not as bad as the Sonics" should replace "Pure Adrenaline Rush" as the Jazz media slogan this season.

Late News Department: Tammy Rasmussen writes an article wondering how Tim Donaghy affected games this season. I anticipate her next article will be about violence in the NBA following the vicious hit Kermit Washington put on Rudy Tomjanovich.

Interestingly she implies that there are many other referees involved in betting on NBA games because Donaghy has threatened to name names of other referees who have engaged in "wrong doing." Of course she doesn't mention that the allegations against other referees generally consists of playing blackjack in casinos and other non-basketball related gambling. Funny how you can make the whole league sound bad by not telling the whole story though. This, by the way, is why we make fun of housewives and fourth graders. As journalists, they truly do suck. But since they try hard the Jazz gives them playing time on an official blog. I guess it's not stunning so many of them love Sloan as a result.

Future Harpring Sucks writers: Turns out there are a handful of Jackie Corbridge's students who have a fine future with this blog. When asked to finish the sentence "The best part of watching the Jazz is" a handful of her students answered "hearing the crowd boo the players." Those are children I want to adopt/steal from their parents. One kid says the best part of watching the jazz play is the food. I'm setting the over/under on that 10 year old's weight at 150.

Strained Genre Analogies: Cameron Hansen continues his practices of stilted writing by making an extended analogy about Ronnie Brewer's pre-season as being a movie preview, Deron Williams upcoming season as being the third episode in a series, and the AK47 saga as an action/drama. Extending the analogy, I'm saying the fact that he regularly contributes to a blog qualifies as a greek tragedy.

Completely Expected: Laurie Nyland started with a quote again. I am shocked and awed. At this point I'm positive that she probably has only one ever seen one Jazz game, but she has it on tape and just watches it every night. At this point, her doing something like this is almost more predictable than Harpring Sucks making jokes at the expense of those incapable of defending themselves.

New Blog next Thursday. Someday we may even have other content!

Game One Thoughts

Bordy, Jr. and I had the fortune of attending the first Jazz pre-season game on Wednesday. A few notes:

- Parking prices have nearly doubled. $8 to park two blocks away? I got these tickets for free (thanks to Uncle Youngblood), and I wasn't about to cheapen the experience by paying for it. We found some 2-hour-parking somewhere around 9th South. A parking patrol officer immediately marked the car. The clock was ticking.

- We arrived at the ESA about midway through the first quarter (BYU fan style). Walking into the Sec. 127 portal, I heard a sudden outburst of wild applause. We rushed through the tunnel only to be met (blocked) by the timeout promotions dude (the guy whose hair is bleached some variant of "blinding"), and his sidekick who were handing out free coupons. The loudness and proudness of the fans was unparalleled.

- AK make basket. Cheering abounds. Half of it in the mock variety.

- One glance into the lower bowl, and it immediately becomes apparent that it is comprised of 1) upper bowlers who moved down, and 2) lower bowlers who gave their tickets away, generally to people who can't afford implants.

- One glance back at the game, and it immediately becomes apparent that all in attendance are 1) suckers. Gary Coleman plays better basketball than this.

- AK make behind-the-back pass for layup. "Oohs" and "aahs" cascade throughout the arena. Jerry puts his face in his hands.

- 3-year-old Bordy, Jr. sits up and takes notice as the cheerleaders take the floor after the first period. "This is my favorite", he says. It's one of those bonding father-son moments. I'm so proud.

- The scoreboard is broken. Huh. Good thing they didn't have four months to test that out.

- Ronnie Price checks in, proceeds to act out a near flawless "Dee Brown" impersonation. CJ, Hart, Fess, Giri, and some incarnation of Araujo (#52?) all join the party. Either my negativity is in mid-season form, or these guys really suck. We're talking beyond Harpringsucks-esque levels. Ok, it's the first pre-season, some of these guys are new to the system, and I shouldn't read too much into it, sure. But anyone who sees anything positive out there just isn't reading at all. Twenty minutes into the pre-season, and it's glaringly obvious who our 2-guard is. Or should be, anyway. I hope that Brewer gets at least 10 starts before Sloan decides to go with the veteran Hart at the 2. Wishful thinking, I know.

- Fess has some decent offensive moves, gets a gimme block, but just doesn't look like the promising player that the post-game show and many fans are making him out to be. Keep in mind, he's also playing against the Bucks 3rd string. Rebounding is apparently not part of the game in the Ukraine. It's not his fault, really. It's the hair. He had several moments where he had to brush his hair aside or kick his head back to get the hair out of his eyes simply so that he could see where he was. Jerry needs to get him to tuck his hair into his shorts as well.

- According to the half-time printed box-score, Collins is still on the team. I turn to Bordy, Jr. to ask him if he remembers Jarron coming in, but he's busy standing on his seat, focused intensely on the Utah Flash Dancers.

- AK brick 3. Immediately the anti-AK machine wakes up, seizing the moment that they had been waiting for. "There's your touch, AK!", "Don't cry, AK, you'll make one this season!", "AK eats babies!", and other similar one-liners start spilling out of the 127.

- AK stuff shot. Ball go out of bounds. Bucks make 3 on next play. Somewhere across the arena, I swear I hear John Middleton (Mr. "Blocks Aren't Defense!") yell "See!"

- Okur takes 6 shots in a row, makes the final one. Anti-AK crowd: "Money!"

- I really wish that Harpring was playing.

- And I miss Derek Fisher, as well. Jerry hears my concerns, and sends Hart back into the game.

- The stadium begins to empty, as it's clear that the D-Team is back on the court. But wait! Bear runs onto the court with a T-shirt cannon! Everyone does a 180, and begins to fight each other for "Cafe Rio" shirts. The loudness/proudness is nearly unbearable.

- No, seriously. Collins is still on the team.

Onward to game 2

Hollinger, Jazzbots, and Stephen Jackson Oh My!

Levar Burton Jazzbots’ newest blogger: Johnathan Kendrick gives a stirring defense of the NBA’s long alleged penchant for fixing games by pointing out how if they’re doing it they’re really bad at it. I think “If we fix games, we’re doing it badly” should be next year’s NBA marketing campaign. Even better, he concludes his blog post with a blatant ploy for comments by ending with “That’s my opinion, what’s yours?” (By the way you can comment on this blog with the conveniently located link at the bottom of this post). I can only assume that Mr. Kendrick was a reading rainbow fan. But… don’t take my word for it. *Da Dah Da*

The fact that the supposed impetus for this article (the Tim Donaghy scandal) somehow implicates the NBA organizational heads in Mr. Kendrick’s mind, however, is somewhat inscrutable on its own merits. Interestingly, this same connection was made this week by jazzbots Annie Whittaker. Unless the FBI is alleging that David Stern is some sort of organized crime boss (an idea that I’m not wholly opposed to, if for no other reason than I like the idea of that room he goes into during the draft that no one ever sees being full of gangster’s molls, cocaine, and a perpetually looping track of that episode of the Sopranos where Furio takes a baseball bat to the Asian massage parlor) I don’t think there’s ever been any allegation that Stern had anything to do with Donaghy’s betting. Furthermore, the type of game-fixing contemplated in this blog post has to do with actually altering outcomes whereas most Donaghy discussion has centered around the idea that Donaghy was influencing the total number of points scored in order to affect total points so that bettors could win on the over/under bet.

What’s truly fascinating about the idea that an allegation against a lone NBA official that is completely extraneous to NBA actions would immediately bring to mind long-standing conspiracy theories involving the NBA’s interest in promoting team success for teams in large markets is that this is a pattern of association we don’t see in other major sports leagues. Baseball’s steroid scandal led to accusations that baseball was indifferent to the trend of performance enhancing drugs in the sport, but did not lead to allegations that the league office actually wanted specific teams to win. Football’s recent debacles with player conduct and resulting long-term suspensions of players has in no way been associated with a league interest in specific teams winning. Even the recent mini-scandal involving the NFL’s rush to destroy any possible evidence that the New England Patriots may have stolen opposition signs in the SuperBowl has not led to any allegations that the NFL has some vested interest in helping the Patriots win. In the NBA, a league where there is ongoing debate still about whether or not a draft lottery was fixed more than 20 years ago, such conduct would have instantly raised the idea of “conspiracy” in the minds of many NBA fans. All of this despite virtually no evidence that any conspiracy to fix games has ever originated from the league office. This tells us something about the NBA (or its fans), I just have no clue what.

Jesus kills space marines: The New York Times had an article this week about church youth groups encouraging attendance by encouraging their ministers in training to treat each other the way missionaries used to treat indigenous people: KILL THEM! Apparently, several youth ministers across the country have decided to make the church more commercial make the church more “relevant” by luring children in the door by promising to let them play Halo 3. As one 12 year old explains the game’s appeal: ““It’s just fun blowing people up.”

Interestingly children under 17 can’t purchase the game because it has been rated “M for mature audiences” by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. You know who was at the forefront of pushing for game ratings so that parents wouldn’t find out their children were playing games with violence without fair warning? The same religious groups buying them en masse.

While intellectually inconsistent, I must say that it will probably be effective. I know I would have stayed a Boy Scout (my church’s Wednesday night youth group activity) for far longer had there been a “frag your friends” merit badge.

6th graders prove to make no better arguments than 4th graders: It turns out jazzbots actually has enlisted the aide of two elementary school classes. Ms. Karen Chatterton’s 6th grade class recently took up the question “should a professional athlete be paid millions of dollars?” Viewing the responses is even more fun if you picture this as CNN cross-fire with a bow-tie clad Tucker Carlson making points like “I personally think that some should because they work really hard to reach their goals.” (Tucker was clearly a Keon Clark fan).

Some highlights:

“Professional basketball players should be paid millions because they play basketball in front of a lot of people just like magicians.” (I had no idea magicians played basketball in front of a lot of people. I’d pay to watch Uri Gellar play Criss Angel in One-on-one though. Uri could bend the rim with his mind to make the hoop larger on his offensive possessions and Criss Angel would have an unstoppable levitation based offense. Payment for the game would, of course, be funded through the James Randi One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge).

“No, they shouldn’t make millions of dollars because they get to play a sport they love playing. They also get to be famous. They should get hundreds, but not millions.” (This student is destined to manage a professional basketball team in Greece, where teams are infamous for repeatedly promising players that they will paid “next week.” Also, David Stern needs this kid to draw a hard line in the next collective bargaining session with the player’s union.)

A PR Move sure to be popular in Salt Lake City: Jazzbots blogger Cameron Hanson (who has not followed up on his attendance at University of Utah Homecoming, leading Harpring Sucks to believe that he went home and memorized Simpsons quotes alone….again) urges AK to be more like Dennis Rodman. If this leads to Carmen Electra sightings in the ESA and multi-colored mohawks I’m all for it.

Ooops: Alan Hinckley calls Magic Johnson “the triple double king.” I’d hate to be him when Oscar Robertson knocks on his door ready to deliver a beatdown.

Maybe we can kiss at mid-court afterwards: As part of the crack team of hard hitting journalists employed at jazzbots.com, an 11 year old says if she was coaching the team “[b]efore each game I would tell the team that it’s not all about winning. It’s about having fun with your friends.”

I’m thinking she also would have named Stephen Jackson captain this week, after all who has more fun with his friends than Stephen Jackson? Which brings us to our next Stephen Jackson related point:

STEPHEN JACKSON NAMED CAPTAIN?!: Harpring Sucks’ elite team of private investigators (think Veronica Mars but with a believable premise, threatening villains, and more convincing noir elements) has gotten a leaked copy of the presentation that got Stephen Jackson named Team Captain. The proposed Stephen Jackson team building activities:

#1. Stripclub gun-shot dance-off: Team members participate in a relay-race in which they must avoid oncoming automobiles in a strip club parking lot by dancing out of the way, shoot wildly into the air, all while balancing their stripper (Team one gets "Destiny," Team two gets "Coco") under their arm.

#2. Marijuana Sculptures: At the beginning of practice (or during a break) three joints will be placed at each teammate's place on the floor. Teammates will then be asked to create sculptures from their joints. In other words, they can do anything they want with them.

At the end of practice ask the team to select a winning pot sculpture.

Remember, a strong team is one that respects personal boundaries. As a result, don't ask if some of the materials for this activity happen to go missing and ignore all strange odors during the team-building exercise.

#3. Visit a gun-fire Range: For added fun, Mr. Jackson is bringing his own custom-made targets that look shockingly like the average NBA fan. Rumors that these targets are wearing Ben Wallace Pistons jerseys are thus far unconfirmed.

#4. Team Bubble-Bath!: Extra points awarded to the player who can make the best replica of Baron Davis' beard with bath bubbles.

#5. Tattoo informational meeting: Hosted by special guests Matt Barnes and local urban artist "Spyder Enigma." Teammates will be encouraged to get a team-themed tattoo. Early ideas include a heart with the word "Nellie" on the inside, a halo-ed Antoine Walker representing the patron saint of the worthless 3 point attempt, and a tight-fisted caricature of Chris Mullin.

Frankly, I would have named him team captain too.

One ball isn’t enough for this man: Matt Harpring’s newest Media Day photo:

Skills Practice Results: The eight year old Mueller daughter tells us “I like to play basketball because it’s fun to play. The funnest thing about it is shooting.” I think it’s safe to say she attended the Matt Harpring basketball camp this summer.

Bizarre Hollinger Predictions: With regards to his NBA record predictions, which we viciously lampooned last week for impliedly stating that the Western and Eastern conferences would be essentially equal in the upcoming season, John Hollinger is already calling audibles. In his most recent blog entry, Hollinger indicates that he believes that Sean May’s microfracture surgery means that the Bobcats will win 6 less games than they would have previously. However, Hollinger hasn’t indicated who will be the beneficiary of those six games. As amended, Hollinger has now produced the first set of record predictions to ever predict more total losses than total wins. Sort of embarrassing when he makes his reputation as ESPN’s resident stat guru. This is really the equivalent of finding out Barry Melrose’s mullet is a Joe Dirt style wig or Stephen A. Smith actually speaks like Sean Connery when he’s not on camera.

Not to be outdone, Hollinger released his individual player projections for the coming season. This led to a few truly bizarre results with respect to the Utah Jazz. Hollinger predicts that Jarron Collins will inexplicably improve this season (maybe refs will call more charges this season?), Deron Williams will regress, and pretty much every notable Jazz player will be worse than last year except for one: Andrei Kirilenko. Although the merits of the PER statistic have been debated ad nauseum in the past, it seems that the real action happens when one looks at Hollinger’s player projections in terms of their implications for which players are the best in the league. While most would probably agree that Deron Williams is at or near top-10 in the league status for his position, Hollinger’s PER metric indicates that he’s only a slightly above average player. In fact Hollinger ranks the top-10 point guards in the league as:

1. Chris Paul
2. Gilbert Arenas
3. Steve Nash
4. Tony Parker
5. Chauncey Billups
6. Baron Davis
7. T. J. Ford
8. Leandro Barbosa
9. Jason Kidd
10. Jose Calderon

Yes you read that list correctly and I’m sure you agree that the Raptors have an embarrassment of riches because they have two of the top 10 point guards in the NBA. Deron ranks at #12, between Devin Harris and Nate Robinson. Yes, seriously. Nate Robinson. The same Nate Robinson that would probably get his shot blocked by an oompa-loompa.

While Hollinger’s rankings for other positions (especially for big men) seem far more reasonable, his PER stat is plainly broken with regards to rating point guards. Of course Hollinger will tell you that PER is the equivalent of a basketball theory of everything, but looking at those results I think the only person who can agree are the agents for T.J. Ford, Leandro Barbosa, Nate Robinson, and Jose Calderon.

Most Accurate Statement Hollinger has ever made: Hollinger did get one thing right though. His report for Matt Harpring reads, in part:

Harpring underwent offseason knee surgery, which wouldn't be a big deal except for all the other offseason knee surgeries he's had. He's already at about the limit of acceptable foot speed for an NBA wing player, so if he loses anything on top of that, he'll be instant toast at the defensive end.

Think he’ll lose any more speed?: Linda Hamilton of the Deseret News wrote a small article that rivals jazzbots worst in terms of unreadibility but it revealed a small piece of news that was heretofore undisclosed (prepare for cringe-worthy syntax before continuing):

Matt Harpring has had difficulties with his knees and their surgeries — the latest one arthroscopically on his right knee in early August to clean out scar tissue.

He participated in only one practice a day during last week's two-a-days, and he's been held out of most contact work and is out for tonight's preseason opener for the Jazz against the Milwaukee Bucks at EnergySolutions Arena at 7.

But another reason Harpring's a little slow to come around is that he also had a previously unreported surgery on his left ankle around Labor Day to repair bone spurs.

Good thing we only owe him $18.5 million over the next three years. Good lord, that number is huge for Matt Harpring. I’m bypassing the usual albatross metaphor and going straight for calling his contract an “ostrich.”

In the effort to get in more cheap shots on someone trying their best (a Harpring Sucks speciality) we present the next sentence in the Linda Hamilton article:

“Speaking of ankles, C.J. Miles mildly sprained an ankle in Tuesday's practice but participated in Wednesday's shootaround and is expected to play tonight, as is Ukrainian rookie Kyrylo Fesenko, who on Tuesday was suffering from apparent food poisoning after dining on sushi.”
Those at risk of seizure or fits of rage shouldn’t try to read the whole article without clearing their immediate area of all sharp objects.

What about the children?: Fourth grade teacher Jackie Corbridge abandoned her students entirely for a blog entry this week. You know, in case you had doubts that she was doing this for her own personal gratification instead of as a class learning activity.

WTF?: Jazzbots blogger Cameron Hanson clearly reads Harpring Sucks and didn’t appreciate our lampooning of his datelessness last week. As he puts it:

“It is so much easier to be negative about subjects. Criticism has a certain flow unlike praise. It is much easier to seem educated when you are constantly pointing out how everyone else isn’t.”

Cameron’s blog post is both shallow and pedantic. Oh yeah, and it sucks. How you like them apples Cameron?

He also lets us know that AK playing well correlates with wins. Check in next week when Cameron reveals his next great discovery: “the team that scores the most points usually wins.”

She’s growing as a writer!: Laurie Nyland, our favorite jazzbots poster who previously would only begin blog posts with a definition of a word has changed her formula: this time she broke out the book of quotes and began with a quote about “expectations” from Samuel Johnson. She’s passed 7th grade writing and is now in 8th. Next month expect all her essays to mysteriously convert to the 5 paragraph format.

Wikipedia describes Samuel Johnson as "Large and powerfully built, Johnson had poor eyesight, was hard of hearing and had a scarred face as a result of childhood scrofula. He also had a number of tics and other involuntary movements; the symptoms described by Boswell suggest that Johnson had Tourette syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder." Interestingly, Ms. Nylund may have ventured into some meta form of writing as I developed a wide variety of involuntary tics while reading her blog post.

See you all next Thursday.