Farewell Gary, don't let the absurd amounts of adulation hit you on your way out.

Over the weekend ESPN.com ran an incredible number of features dedicated to aging veteran Gary Payton essentially deciding call it quits. Most of these features were dedicated to the "fact" that Gary was underrated historically and was assuredly one of the greatest ever to play at his position. Somehow they all failed to mention that the only reason he's retiring in the first place is because he's so singularly bad at this point that he's received no offers from NBA teams to play professional basketball. It's not as if he's making salary demands no one wants to meet (like Earl Boykins) or is simply too raw and unpolished at this point in his career to be playable (like Dee Brown), he's simply so bad that no one wants him for the salary that he played at last year. Of course that salary was the veteran's minimum which means not only was he being paid an absurdly low amount of money the league office was also chipping in to pay a substantial portion of it. This is not the case of a dignified veteran going out of the game while he still had something to contribute, this is the ultimate in someone announcing "retirement" when the reality is that the market doesn't want them anymore.

Putting aside that Payton is leaving with his death rattle rasping from his vocal cords, the adulation heaped upon him is borderline ridiculous. J.A. Adande acted as if Payton wasn't a supremely talented athlete and instead just willed his way into being a good player; one wonders where Adande's article was lauding John Stockton at retirement considering that Payton's athleticism made Stockton look like he was one of the extras in "Teen Wolf." John Hollinger wrote a lengthy article indicating he believed that Payton was the fourth best point guard of all time ahead of greats like Isiah Thomas, Bob Cousy, Walt Frazier, and Tiny Archibald. Part of his argument consists of the idea that Payton is criminally underrated because people tend to dismiss scoring point guards as being worse than "pure point guards." However, this is a lot like arguing that people tend to underrate President Bush because of his war record even though there was a good economy for most of his presidency. The reality is that GREAT point guards can score well and pass.

Payton's career indicates that he's a lot closer to the Kevin Johnson/Tim Hardaway class of point guard than Stockton and Isiah. Compare the group:

Gary Payton: 16.3 ppg, 4 rpg, 6.7 apg, 1.83 spg. 9 All-Star selections, 2 All NBA First Teams
Kevin Johnson: 17.9 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 9.1 apg, 1.47 spg, 3 All-Star selctions
Tim Hardaway: 17.7 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 8.2 apg, 1.65 spg, 5 All-Star selections, 1 All NBA First Team

Hell compare him to Anfernee Hardaway, a guy who has spent most of his career to hurt to play major minutes:

15.4 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 5.1 apg, 1.61 spg. 4 All-Star selections, 2 All NBA First Teams.

Those guys were great players, but to act like they're among the best of all time at their position is laughable and Payton falls with them.

Of course the reality is that these guys like Payton because he was an entertaining interview and a prolific trash-talker (for similar reasons they treated Reggie Miller like an All-Time great when he retired), and that's why he's getting loads of praise. On that basis, Harpring Sucks fully expects to be inducted into the blog hall of fame given our trash talking proclivities.

Karen Chatterton’s Students on Matt Harpring: Sometimes the phrasing of the jazzbots bloggers is a far better joke than anything I can come up with. One student writes about Matt Harpring:

“I like Harpring. He’s a solid player and a nice guy. He is also the position I usually play. He is a hustle maniac. Every time he is in, his face goes red because he is running so hard. He also doesn’t have tatoos or earrings. He’s a cool guy. His wife works where my dad works.”

Reportedly, this student leads his sixth grade basketball team in “Woo!” per 48. I’d also be curious to ask his dad about the rumors that Harpring’s wife’s face gets black and blue every time Harpring gets angry.

Blogoetry tries to respond to criticism: A personal favorite practice of mine is when people realize their position is untenable so they attempt to play the “high road” card. In response to Harpring Sucks’ unrelenting criticism of jazzbots, the resident Blogoet Josh Leavitt wrote a borderline hysterical piece called (and I’m not making this up) “Jazzbots, ya heard?” In this piece Josh Leavitt repeatedly asserts that jazzbots is the only blog that matters (which is a great message for an official team blog to send to kill the interest of the fans that care enough to maintain blogs about their product) and that jazzbots is better than all other blogs because it is relentlessly positive.

Of course Leavitt apparently has selective amnesia given that even though he claims that jazzbots is above “slurs” he wrote a “call out” where he slammed various members of the Houston Rockets only three weeks ago.

He also defends the jazzbots de facto censorship policy (which interestingly has led to only positive comments from fellow jazzbots bloggers on his particular post regardless of what the ACTUAL public reaction is) by proclaiming “we act as a filter, disallowing the resentful, the cynics…the quitter.” How “the quitter” makes any sense in terms of people you’d want to disallow from posting because they’re not positive is anyone’s guess, but one gets the sense he was trying too hard to make this line rhyme with “bitter.”

He also makes the claim that Jazzbots is “positive” like “the team they follow.” Apparently Jerry Sloan, Matt Harpring’s comments about teammates after games in which he hasn’t shot the ball far more than he should, the perpetual squabbles between Karl Malone and the person attached to Larry Millers Creepy elbows and ears, and AK’s trade demands are all things Mr. Leavitt is unaware of.

Sounds to me like a pretty ridiculous attempt to say “I will not respond to any of the criticisms against me because I’m taking the high road despite any and all previous history.” You know who else employed that strategy in regards to reports that he picked up a hooker?

Gross Omissions: Stanton Huntington did a list of the 8 players that Jazz fans love to hate. Stunningly, he forgot to include Greg Ostertag. Considering the number of people that I heard complain about Ostertag over the years (a transcript of Jerry Sloan’s comments on Ostertag would weigh between 2-4 tons) this is equivalent to compiling a list of “Top 8 washed up celebrities continually attempting a comeback in ill-fated ventures” and including only one Baldwin brother.

His father pitched the movie “Ishtar”: Cameron Hansen came up with several changes he would make if he owned the Jazz this week. Included among them was the suggestion “pay the bear whatever he wants.” I think I speak for all regular readers of this blog when I say I’m rooting for the Bear to demand Jackie Corbridge’s soul.

Hansen also proposes the Jazz save some samples of Jerry Sloan’s hair so that the team can clone him in the event that Jerry retires. Thus, Cameron reasons, the team would be assured good coaching for the foreseeable future. Of course the fatal flaw for this cloning idea is that we’d have to find someone willing to be artificially inseminated with a fetus that is the clone of Jerry Sloan. Given all the stories we know about his playing days this means he’s likely to fight and kick like hell in the womb. Also the post-birth press conference won’t be pretty when he tells everyone that “Mom just wasn’t trying out there. She got too focused on herself and forgot what we were trying to accomplish.”

Unfortunate acronyms: The city of South Lake Union recently built a trolley car system and local legend has it that they almost went with the acronym S.L.U.T. Harpring Sucks wants to know how much the fare is to ride, or do you gain entry by buying a drink at a local bar?

And what does the conductor's uniform look like? Can I expect this woman to be taking tickets?

Bad Math (and from a source that is supposedly edited too): In Bill Simmons’ NBA preview article he writes “the Nets are a top-six team in the East whether Vince Carter is interested or not.” The problem? He wrote this right after ranking them seventh in the East.

Dee Brown pangs?! WTF?!: Laurie Nylund openly pined for Dee Brown this week while panning Jason Hart. This is more than a little like complaining about how unsafe your Hyundai Elantra is and then replacing it with a Ford Pinto.

Harpring Sucks isn’t saying that Hart has played well, frankly he looks like he’s been staying up late at night making pillow forts all too frequently, but acting like Dee Brown was a good NBA player has about as much credibility as O.J. Simpson’s claims that he’s going to find the real killer.

At least a handful of Harpring Sucks bloggers have indicated that Andrei Kirilenko should be playing back-up point guard minutes while Deron sits on the bench. Even if he’s not effective and turns the ball over you know that the turnovers will be spectacular.

Holding out hope for far too long: Keith Haney states that he’s still willing to believe that Jason Hart might be a decent back-up point guard for the Jazz. Harpring Sucks’ crack investigative team reports he also still writes letters to Santa Claus every year and puts corn kernels under his pillow in hopes of fooling the tooth fairy.

I suffer from Jazzbotulism: Tim Ormond wrote a whole article that seems to suggest that we should appreciate perpetual drunkard broadcaster Hot Rod Hundley because he might not be around much longer. As the implication for what would happen if we fail to do? We might catch "Mark Eatonitis." Curiously Ormond never defines exactly what "Mark Eatonitis" is. Harpring Sucks' medical research division confirms the much feared Eatonitis is a parasite whose origins can be traced back to this man's beard.

Presumably that's what those "Fear the Beard" people have been talking about all this time.

The Strained Metaphor, a Jazzbots Tradition: Jackie Corbridge wrote this long and completely inscrutable metaphor about raising children and basketball defense. I'm not even sure she could tell us what constitutes zone defense parenting vs. man to man defense parenting. I just wish the principal Sloan would bench her already.

The single best argument against the WNBA: Annie Whittaker gives a run-down of the informal rules used in her women's league. These include "scrunchy time outs" and ponytail fouls. Undisclosed were baby feedings during halftime, makeovers after the game, and that everyone has to jump up and down when someone on either team hits a shot. And people wonder why the WNBA never caught on. If Scott Pollard ever tried to call a scrunchy time-out Reggie Evans would pull his balls off.