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?

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.

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.

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.

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.