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.