Breaking News: Larry Miller slightly crazy.

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

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

Carlos Boozer: .461

Paul Millsap: .310

Andrei Kirilenko: .297
Mehmet Okur: .289

Gordan Giricek: .284

Deron Williams: .277

Ronnie Brewer: .210
Matt Harpring: .205

Dee Brown: .147

Rafael Arujao: .140

Derek Fisher: .135

Jarron Collins: .111

CJ Miles: -.075

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Possibly the worst blog on the planet

It has been chronicled ad nauseum on this website that the Utah Jazz have an amazing propensity to give work to people who simply work hard and try their best rather than those who are actually talented and would do the best work. While this has previously only applied to players like Matt Harpring, whose on-court performance wildly vacillates between the patently absurd and putridity, the team has decided to expand its penchant for mediocrity into the online world of blogging by opening a blog sponsored by the team that is written entirely by pre-selected fans. While this sounds like a great concept in theory, the reality is that the result is more optimistic and warm than Mary Poppins on an ecstasy trip at Disneyland.

The website is located at http://www.jazzbots.com/. The team-sponsored bloggers who can only post positive things about the organization actually call themselves "jazzbots." Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

As you might imagine we don't take kindly to that sort of tone around here; and what's worse is that the blog posts are invariably either horribly boring, completely inane, or borderline racist. Don't believe me? Let's go down the list of a representative sample of jazzbots posts thus far. In fact, this might even become a regular feature.

1. Article about the mascot: I'm sure everyone on the internet actively seeks out information about the Jazz bear making public appearances to drum up interest in the team doing charitable work in the community, but just can't find a good resource detailing the bear's charitable works. Unfortunately the blog post about the bear starts with the following:

What’s big and brown and has everyone cheering?

With all due credit given to prodigy at jazzfanz.com, my initial thought after reading the opening sentence was not of the jazz bear but of this guy:

I'm sure that the team located in Salt Lake City wants that associated with the organization. Of course the article eventually acknowledges that the author has no idea who she's celebrating because the Jazz bear wears a full body suit and conceals the wearer's identity. You know who else employs such a tactic to prevent public identification?

And before you guys say "that's over the top" let's go to the next absurd jazzbots.com post.

2. Birth of a Nation: That's not my title for this post, that was the title selected by the actual author. While the author clearly means it to be about the birth of "jazzbots nation" (a frightening prospect given the "sponsored by candy and toy companies" feel of the website) he probably forgot about the immediate images that the phrase "Birth of a Nation" immediately evokes.

In completely unrelated news, Utah is currently ranked the 38th most educated state in the country.

3. Stilted Writing: One blog poster attempted to write an article about how she was a "convert" from being a Green Bay Packer football fan to a Utah Jazz fan. There's nothing wrong with the premise, but it's obvious that she hasn't written an essay since the fourth grade because she opens her post this way:

con·vert n. 1. A person who is converted from one opinion or practice to
another; a person who is won over to, or heartily embraces, a creed, religious
system, or party, in which he has not previously believed.

I'm so glad to see that the immortal classic "My First Term Paper" is still selling copies, even if its full grown adults buying it for their own use. In all honesty, I have a 10 year old brother and if he started writing a paper that way I'd punch him in the face for being an unoriginal hack. This woman deserves at least two shots to the ovaries.

4. Obvious "awwwww factor": One of the blog "contributors" (I put the term in quotes because most of the blog posts contribute next to nothing) is an elementary school class. I'm sure they'll deliver hard hitting journalism about the Jazz. For instance did you know that most boys in the class like playing AND watching basketball but most girls don't want to play? I'm glad to see that Ms. Jackie Corbridge of Lucille C. Reading Elementary school is playing to gender stereotypes (after all was there any other reason to bifurcate her "polling" by gender?) in her initial blog posts. I fully expect post #2 to be titled "why the only black student in Utah is the most athletic" or "our Asian students are the best at math AND karate."

Who am I kidding? This class is probably actually taught by Clayton Bigsby. The teacher will never give black students credit for being athletic.

5. "Sloan for President": Another actual title for a blog post. Just when I thought actual politicians were stubborn.

Next week: the "Jerry Sloan as Commander in Chief Decision Flow Chart."