Hollinger gets something right, Marital Issues, and Jazzbots

This blog is scheduled for Thursday, but it's coming out on a Friday. I'd apologize, but I'm not really sorry.

John Hollinger, a favorite Harpring Sucks target, released a list of players that he put on the "all-decline" team. In essence these are meant to be players that are going to be substantially worse this season than he was last season. Prominently featured on the list was this man:

In particular Hollinger wrote about Führer Harpring (so named because many Jazz fans cite leadership as his best quality):

The numbers say he's 31 and is likely to do worse anyway, but this one is mainly a subjective call. Harpring had more knee trouble in the offseason, and was already quite possibly the league's slowest wing player -- something that became obvious when he was asked to guard anyone with even a modicum of speed. The worry here is that any further diminution in speed will compromise his quickness to the point that he can't defend the position any longer.

While John (I'm assuming I can call him John after writing about him so much) correctly points out that Harpring is generally slower than a sloth doped up on Ambien he fails to point out that the reason for this is that he falls over every other time down the floor. Using complex statistical formulas compiled from data gathered entirely by Harpring Sucks, it has been determined that players that fall over frequently on average run substantially slower than players that remain upright while propelling themselves forward.

Of course John also points out that rigor mortis has set in for Harpring's lower extremities, and that this makes him so bad defensively that it is questionable whether he can defend anyone at his position any longer. Harpring Sucks believes in fairness in journalism and would thus like to point out that there is one league where Harpring could play adequate defense:

We anxiously await an appropriate trade.

Girlish Screams: The Mueller family essentially acknowledged this week that they’re closet Indianapolis Colts fans by talking about screaming at games. Oh wait, the Colts crowd noise is entire artificial. And people say that the Patriots are evil at least they’re not trying to win through the use of disembodied voices.

In any sense, given the admission of lots of screaming on the part of the Mueller family Harpring Sucks provides the following helpful guide for finding the Muellers in Energy Solutions Arena.

#1. Follow the dogs that are inevitably attracted to their high pitch, high volume yowls.

#2. Look for the grumpy old man who’s frantically searching for his earmuffs to block out the noise of his unanticipated seat neighbors.

#3. Look for the guy who keeps ordering more and more beer to drown out his wife and daughters.

#4. Listen for which section gets noticeably louder when the Bear walks out but acts disappointed when the game starts again.

#5. Look for the obnoxious signs that display a vaguely team-related message using the initials of whatever network is broadcasting the game. By the way, people who display these obnoxious signs are hellspawn incarnate. If given the opportunity, I would leave their ancestors off of Schindler’s List.

There you go, glad to help whomever really wants to find the Muellers. Of course, given the average age of the posters in the Mueller family the person most likely to try to find them would be Peter Lorre’s character from “M.” I’m glad to know that Harpring Sucks is finally fulfilling its stated mission of aiding child molesters.

John Amaechi might hold you a little too closely: Annie Whittaker proposes that NBA players should hug each other when they get into an altercation rather than have the NBA impose fines.

Harpring Sucks thinks this idea is fine but doesn’t go far enough; institute deep tongue kissing instead! This has the opportunity to prove my theory that Zaza Pachulia would be the most tender lover in the NBA (just look at those soft lips!) as well as provide great unintentional comedy every time Rasheed Wallace gets a technical. I also anxiously await the first “Baron Davis needs to shave his beard, his face is too scratchy” press conference after a good tonsil-mashing with Scott Pollard. For bonus points imagine 5’9” Nate Robinson trying to French Yao Ming. The prospect of the refs bringing out a step-ladder to aid in disciplinary proceedings is too good to pass up. Best of all, the NBA will make in-roads into the WNBA’s primary audience with all the man-on-man action.

Jackie Corbridge’s students apparently watching a different game than tatermoog and Capt. Sig: Jackie Corbridge’s much maligned fourth grade class took a break from eating paste, playing extreme-tetherball (4 fatalities recorded this year), and butchering the educational system to take an impromptu poll on which Jazz player is the MVP so far this year. And I thought all-star voting began too soon!

Sadly, this question seems designed to cut out one specific student who thus far had answered every poll question with something involving the food at the game. I’ve privately been affectionately referring to this student as “Gordon” because it feels right. I imagine he looks like this:

This purposeful tailoring of the question leads to me to believe that Jackie Corbridge hates fat people. So if you’re fat and take umbrage with this obvious discrimination against both Gordon and yourself waddle slowly over to Lucille Reading Elementary School and let Ms. Corbridge know what you think.

As to the substance of the children’s responses they largely seem to think that Deron Williams is the clear MVP of the season thus far. However one student cited Carlos Boozer’s defense as the reason he’s the MVP of the team. That will be embarrassing for him in a couple of years given that Boozer defends the basket about as well as Paris Hilton defends herself from herpes.

Prison Exercise in the Phillipines: This makes me feel like I was born in the wrong country. As it is I'm strongly considering flying to Manila and joining the ranks of the dancing undead.

Award Time: Jazzbots received an award this week from the NBA for being the first official team blog. Before jazzbots gets all in a tizzy about how great they are because they got an award Harpring Sucks counters with the following two points.

#1. This is the league that gives ridiculous awards all the time. Remember Aaron McKie won the NBA’s sixth man award recently, gave Elgin Baylor of the generally awful Clippers the Executive of the year award, and facilitated awarding Anucha Brown Sanders $11 million after Isiah Thomas repeatedly tried to pull a Joe Namath on her. Getting an award from the NBA apparently requires little more than showing up and getting lucky.

#2. Harpring Sucks has been awarded the equally prestigious “Harpring Sucks award for excellence in the field of superior achievement” by a completely independent panel. Additionally, while many have received the same commendation received by jazzbots we are, of course, the only website that has been given our particular honor. Not only that, rumor has it we’ll win next year too.

Dear Pot: You are Black. Love, The Kettle: Laurie Nylund complains this week about the poor quality of sports radio coverage of the team. Harpring Sucks will refrain from pointing out obvious irony in the interest of good taste and maintaining good relations between the two websites.

Speaking of Awards….: Tammy Rasmussen wins the coveted Harpring Sucks “Bad Writing Award given out at arbitrary intervals” for her recent article about steroid use in athletics. As a preliminary note, it’s worth pointing out that basketball is frequently considered the sport least likely to suffer from a steroid problem because the sport generally rewards long lanky players and successful beefy players are the exception rather than the rule. Many NBA players don’t even lift weights because they're worried about how the extra bulk would affect their shooting stroke and how smoothly they could move.

Some choice excerpts from the article:

Athletes are out there and so many are role models to our youth.

In case you were convinced that athletes weren't out there.

So, what are steroids? Steroids are classified as anabolic.

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Ms. Rasmussen we give you an award equal to the highest you've probably ever earned:


Special Thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for granting Harpring Sucks provisional authority to award certificates.

The Race to the Bottom: As I'm in my early-mid twenties (having recently turned 24, I've discovered it's easier to rationalize my aging by adding lots of prefixes) many of my friends are tying the knot and this has raised substantial debate as to what to do about their last names. Although everyone acknowledges that it's far more convenient and easy to explain that you're a new family when everyone involved has the same last name some people are understandably loathe to follow the traditional path of having the bride give up her last name. After all, it feels just an eensy bit sexist.

This has led to a number of proposals. Many people have opted to go with hyphenation of the female's name. Besides the fact that this doesn't really solve any of the problems because the bride still has a different last name AND it's still sexist because only the bride is changing her last name it has one other problem: what happens if you divorce and remarry? Do you eliminate the previous husband's name or go for double hyphenation? If you're a polygamist how many hyphens do you need? Just too messy and doesn't solve any problems. This is clearly not a good option.

Other couples have gone for the permutation of the bride and groom's last names. So for example if Luther Head married Randy Moss they might make their last name "Headmoss" which sounds strangely like the next product produced by the Ronco Corporation. The problem with this option is that some people have last names just unpermutable. For example, let's say Stanko Barac married anyone. Could his last name really be permuted into anything that didn't sound like mushmouth? Besides this potentially doesn't solve the sexism problem either because it can become a huge issue as to whose name becomes the first part of the permutation. Thus, Harpring Sucks can't endorse this option either.

In lieu of either of these options we suggest a proposal called "Race to the Bottom." In order to solve the problems of one person having to sacrifice their name in favor of their partner's, Harpring Sucks believes that both parties should be equally inconvenienced. Consequently we suggest that both parties abandon their last name and mutually agree upon a new, entirely invented last name.

This has a number of obvious advantages because it solves the problems outlined above but it also creates exciting new opportunities. For example, the Madame has a friend with the last name "Hassenpflug." That name is fantastic. When the Madame eventually marries someone far hotter than myself and someone with better things to do with his time than write for an ostensibly NBA-based blog she could make her last name "Hassenpflug." Admittedly this could cause small problems with her friend who may feel like Pam from the Office when attending Phylis and Bob Vance's wedding when she sees an invitation to a wedding with her own last name on it, but this is a clear "omelets/eggs" situation. Additionally, I've always wanted to name my first son "Slash" and now I could select a fantastic last name to go along with Slash. Some powerful. Maybe Patton.

Of course this would also lead to new divorce issues as it would become highly contentious who got to keep the new, presumably cooler, last name. Of course this would provide our own JohnDeereJerry with a whole new line of work, which is unfortunately because he'd post on Harpring Sucks even less than he currently does.

Finally I foresee one other possible complaint: people who like genealogy complaining this would make it very difficult for future generations to make their family trees. To these people, I say simply: Get a real hobby.

Karen Chatterton soon to be contacted by Child Protective Services: I like the Jazz and all, but not enough to sit through a game while in labor. One can only imagine Ms. Chatterton refusing to teach her 6th grade class because she's reading Morris Almond's blogs about why he's on the inactive list and Dee Brown complaining that he's not good enough to play in the NBA.

Bad sportsmanship: Ross Siler practiced character assassination this week by arguing that Morris Almond's blog is better than Gilbert Arenas' because Gilbert tells his thoughts to another person who then types them out instead of physically sitting at the keyboard. Never mind that Gilbert's are actually entertaining and Morris Almond writes about being on the inactive list.

One assumes that Ross Siler also prefers "Tuesdays with Morrie" to the Bible because Jesus didn't actually write any of his own material.

Unintended effects and an actual apology: Apparently the best way to motivate Harpring Sucks to produce more material is to post a picture of Kathy Bates in a hot tub on the front page. Fellow bloggers will do anything to get it off. Sorry guys, can I offer up official Harping Sucks hot chef Giada as recompense?

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.

John Hollinger, Jazzbots, Jerry Sloan. Suck, Suck, Suck.

Before we get into this week's panning of the blog actively kept up by the biggest corporate tools on the planet, we feel a real need to point out some new piece of absurdity promulgated by ESPN this week.

John Hollinger's NBA predictions: This week Hollinger, ESPN's stat guru who like many renegade physicists claims to have discovered a broad based theory of everything by developing his hotly-debated PER statistic, released a group of prognostications about how all 30 NBA teams would fare this season. Although he managed to avoid the classic pitfall of predicting an exact record for each team by actually making his total wins equal his total losses on a league-wide basis (some magazines routinely predict more total wins than total losses, apparently believing that if both teams play well that they will both be rewarded with a win and the player's parents will distribute juice boxes at half time from the back of their mini-vans), one implication of his win-loss predictions seems completely absurd. But before we get there, a simple point. If you met this man at a bar would you immediately trust him?

Me neither. In fact, that's the face of the guy I fully expect to try to sneak drinking out of the beer tap when the bartender isn't looking. Frankly, that's sort of how I feel about paying for ESPN Insider to read Hollinger's material over the last year, like every time I turn around there's just a little more missing from what he writes but I can't ever put a finger on exactly when it was ESPN pulled the rug out from under me.

According to Hollinger, teams in the Western Conference will have a net record that is four wins higher than their losses while Eastern Conference teams will (obviously) have a net record that is four wins lower than their losses. In essence, Hollinger believes that the West will only win four more games over the east than it loses. In the context of the last few seasons this is a completely absurd prediction. Let's review the East-West disparity over the last three seasons (since Charlotte was added and there was a divisional realignment):

2006-2007: 64 game difference in favor of the Western Conference

2005-2006: 36 game difference in favor of the Western Conference

2004-2005: 72 game difference in favor of the Western Conference

I am acutely aware that Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis and Zach Randolph all moved from the western conference to the eastern conference this off-season and that this in some measure will likely impact the inter-conference record in favor of the east. I'm also aware, however, that none of those guys were on a team that won more than 32 games last season so it's not like they were on teams that were good before and are now going to suck. I'm also aware that of these four players only Garnett and Allen made the all-star team last year and that there are serious questions about how much Rashard Lewis and Zach Randolph will actually help their new teams.

Of course there was also a rookie draft, but I think we all know which conference ended up with both Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. Hint: It wasn't the east. In essence, Hollinger is betting that those four guys are worth a 60 win swing between the conferences. On this point, I suspect he shall be severely humbled. Of course then we can look forward to that column where John Hollinger admits he was wrong about something. I know I've enjoyed reading that non-existent column for the last several seasons. As long as I'm dreaming I'd also like a pony.

Jazzbots Sucks #1: Although we're now seeing the second and third posts of many of the "jazzbots" bloggers, we've yet to see a marked difference in quality. This week was initially kicked off by a blog post by the Mueller family that I can only assume was written by the eight year old daughter because half of the post was about a 14 year old girl explaining that she knows something about football and about the family doing yard work.

I fully expect the next blog post to be about what the family ate for breakfast (I'm guessing gruel) with the Jazz vaguely mentioned in both the first and last paragraphs. I'm thinking this will take the form of "then I put my oatmeal in a bowl ... I wanted some fruit in my oatmeal but our bananas were kind of old and were starting to get brown and fuzzy ... The Jazz bear is brown and fuzzy .... Go Jazz!" Mueller family you have failed to justify your existence.

Jazz Poetry Part 1: Our favorite blogging 4th grade class wrote haikus this week about basketball. Given the poll results that Ms. Corbridge shared with us last week I can only assume that the class was divided by gender and then given separate assignments. Boys were probably told to write about basketball players and girls were asked to write about Jazz dancers.

Apparently Ms. Corbridge is a fantastic teacher who correctly informed her students that the classic format for a haiku is 5 syllables on the first line, 7 syllables on the second line, and 5 syllables on the third line. I can only assume that the teacher chose to showcase the best work product her class could produce given that the very first haiku she showcases only has 6 syllables in the second line, the second haiku has 6 syllables in the first line, and the fifth haiku has 6 syllables in the third line. Keep in mind she only posted 5 haikus so 60% of the ones that made the cut incorrectly applied the format. One can only assume that Ms. Corbridge's future Nobel Laureates might be spending too much time blogging about basketball as opposed to actually learning something. This, of course, would put Ms. Corbridge in the top half of Utah state public school teachers.

What's important though is that she clearly has a lot of love and warmth for the children. As long as we've decided that those qualities are more important than actual teaching ability though I think we should take this premise to its logical conclusion. May I suggest that next year's elementary school english instead be taught by Ms. Letourneau?

Harpring Sucks' extensive investigative arm has also uncovered a submitted Haiku by one precocious student who unfortunately had his submission rejected by the moderating staff at jazzbots.com:

Bad defense, awful

passing, two bad knees, ugly.

To wit, Harpring Sucks.

Reports of this child being told to write a report on the trial of Galileo Galilei before the Roman Inquisition after submitting this poem for publication are thus far unconfirmed.

If your children read Harpring Sucks, you're a fantastic parent. But seriously, don't let them read this part: This blog has been a little too G-rated for my personal tastes lately. Time to dirty it up some.

I recently received a rather bizarre phone call from a close friend of mine. At first he wanted an official ruling on how many times you have to sleep with a girl before you're officially dating her (for those of you scoring at home we decided on 5 times if sexual contact occurs, 3 times if no sexual contact but snuggling occurs on the theory that this implies emotional connection, and an infinite number of times if she's your mother). Such a question, however leads to a number of inquiries as to why the need for such information would ever arise. Somewhat predictably, it turns out he needed a ruling because he was starting to see a woman but wasn't sure if he was dating her yet or not.

The official answer: he's not dating her yet because they've only had sex twice. It's not that anyone is emotionally adverse to continuing the process but there's a hang-up: it turns out that she's on the physically unable to perform list because during their last "getting to know you session" he bruised her cervix.

Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.

Never one to be outdone, I assumed that if my friend could be an accomplished cervix bruiser then I too would be up to the task. Unfortunately there has been some confusion between myself and Madame Kicky as to where exactly the cervix is located. This has led to some embarrassing incidents culminating in bite marks on her thigh. Turns out that's not where the cervix is.

For guidance, I asked my friend how exactly he managed the herculean feat of bruising his potential girlfriend's cervix in the first place. You know you're curious too. This mystery answered later in the column.

Jazz Poetry Part 2: Our favorite jazzbots racist who told us all about the "Birth of a Nation" last week has written another blog post full of what he calls "blogoetry." Sometimes you don't even have to try to mock someone; they've done the best possible job already.

Given that Mr. Joshua Leavitt's photo features him wearing some sort of beret I think we can safely assume he enjoys coffee shops and poetry slam. In related news, artsy guys reputation for getting women still far exceeds actual women getting.

Notable Omission: Cameron Hanson tells us he's going to the University of Utah's homecoming dance. Note that he doesn't say he has a date.

Jerry Sloan as Commander in Chief: Last week I was joking when I said that I would do a Jerry Sloan as Commander in Chief decision flow chart. Such a task would clearly be ludicrous. Unfortunately this meant that a couple of my fellow bloggers (and the ever-demanding dragon lady Madame Kicky) actually expected me to do one. Damn, these things take a lot of time.

This just gives me more reason to hate the guy who wrote the "Jerry Sloan for President" blog post last week.

Without further ado:

Click to enlarge.

Stilted Writing 2: The Wrath of Khan: Last week we made fun of a jazzbots blogger who clearly never developed her writing skills past the middle school level because she started her post with a dictionary definition of the word convert. Apparently, she remains convinced this is a good writing tactic because she opens her most recent blog post with a colloquial definition of the word marriage.

I fully expect next week's entry to open with a definition of the word "hack." Oh yeah, and in case you all are wondering, they probably get more hits than we do by a full order of magnitude. *sigh*

As if there was any doubt jazzbots.com was an extended advertisement for the Jazz: Aaron Heaten made a blog post that was essentially an extended defense of the Jazz high ticket prices. He then suggested specific single game tickets readers should buy. Although the blogging positions on jazzbots are ostensibly unpaid, I'm beginning to suspect a kickback scheme.

A true WTF moment: Remember our breakfast-eating yardwork-doing friends the Muellers? Their 14 year old daughter took a turn writing a family blog post this week. Her stunning insight on the Jazz? Deron Williams is "hot." I'm sorry that's a misquote, he's "H-O-T!!! On FIRE:-)!!!" The 14 year old daughter then goes on to express a desire to marry the (already married) Deron Williams before acknowledging that it's all a joke because she's "already picked out [her] husband."

14 years old and already committed to sell herself into slavery early.

I anxiously await the launching of teenpregnancybots.com.

The solution to our earlier mystery (parents best stop their children here): When we left off with our cervix bruising friend it wasn't yet apparent exactly how he managed to go where no man has gone before (actually I know this girl and I'm certain at least 5 other men have gone there before, just not quite all the way to the heart of darkness known as the cervix).

Apparently the bruising occurred in this most uncomfortable place (as uncomfortable as the back of a Volkswagen) because, in his excitement while thrusting wildly while standing behind her, he became frustrated that she kept moving forward away from him with each thrust. Obviously he needed a solution to this problem that was preventing him from getting as close as he wanted to. He needed some restraining device, any restraining device, but it had to be within reach because he was sort of busy at that exact moment.

Frantically searching with his foot (remember that he's standing up so this means he's currently thrusting while on one leg, a maneuver we've dubbed Flamingo F--King) he came across a loose piece of cloth on the floor. Gracefully (well as graceful as a cervix bruiser can be) he flung the piece of cloth up from the floor with his foot into his hand where he discovered the girl's pink Hello Kitty underwear. Resourcefully he placed it around her neck, preventing her from moving forward, she bent backward on the recoil and, voila, bruised cervix.

This incident has led the Madame and myself to dub my friend the "Phoenix panty strangler." He believes this label is unfair. As he puts it "geez, a guy chokes a girl once in a hot way..."

Back next week with more guaranteed absurd jazzbots material. I'm sure those bloggers won't disappoint.