All Euro (Whitey) Team comment and other thoughts on recent blog articles I've enjoyed

I love readings blogs . . . that's actually the main reason why I created one as well -- because I wanted to give back. Unfortunately I don't have all the time in the world to read them anymore, but I try to keep abreast of blog posts via BallHype.com. (They are fantastic, I use BallHype.com more often than I use Google.com) Anyway, here's a selection of blog posts and my take on them --

Rebounding Differential Rankings in the NBA [Nov 6] -- Khandor's Sports Blog talks about something Jazz fans have been very lucky to have over the last few seasons, and actually positive rebounding differential. Utah is a strong rebounding club (currently #6th in the NBA in differential at +5.00 as of November 6th, 2008). Last season the Jazz were tied for 3rd over-all with the Boston Celtics at +3.1 rebound differential; Cleveland was at +4.2, and Houston at +4.0. Two of the clubs above the Jazz (Detroit and Philly) have played the Raptors though, and thus, those rebounding numbers look highly inflated. Khandor shows a nice chart and talks about it a bit. I tend to value rebounding differential more than actual average RPG because it shows how good (or bad) a team is compared to other teams -- as opposed to being an isolated number by itself. I wish the Raptors do get better rebounding, as they are one of the teams that I root for. Thanks Khandor for blogging about this, it's nice to know that I'm not the only crazy person out there who likes stats.

Zach at Gunaxin.com recently blogged about The All Whitey Basketball Team -- Zach describes and details a 12 man roster of purely American white guys. He comes up with Kirk Hinrich, Mike Miller, Mike Dunleavy Jr., David Lee and Chris Kaman as starters. The bench is comprised of Brad Miller, Kyle Korver, Steve Blake, Kevin Love, Wally Szcerbiak, Troy Murphy and Nick Collison. I don't think that team would suck. (It would be a whole lot better than an All-Asian Basketball team, for starters . . . and as a guy who's parents were born in Asia I can say that, I guess in that Russell Peters type of "i'm a minority so I can be racist" type of comedy that Sarah Silverman employs) That's a tangent though . . . I wanted to make an all European Basketball team to counter . . . this is what I came up with (In no order):

1. Tony Parker (PG) -- France/Spurs
2. Hidayet Turkoglu (SF/SG) -- Turkey/Magic
3. Andrei Kirilenko (SF/PF) -- Russia/Jazz
4. Dirk Nowitzki (PF/C) -- Germany/Mavericks
5. Pau Gasol (PF/C) -- Spain/LA Lakers
6. Jose Manuel Calderon (PG) -- Spain/Raptors
7. Sasha Vujacic (SG/PG) -- Slovenia/LA Lakers
8. Rudy Fernandez (SG/SF) -- Spain/Trailblazers
9. Predrag Stojakovic (SF/SG) -- Serbia (Croatia)/Hornets
10. Linas Kleiza (SF/PF) -- Lithuania/Nuggets
11. Mehmet Okur (PF/C) -- Turkey/Jazz
12. Zydrunas Ilgauskas (C) -- Lithuania/Cavaliers

If you want only "White Euros" then take out Tony Parker and put in Beno Udrih instead and start Jose instead. I think that team would be pretty comparable to the USA Whitey's team, though probably beat them in a 7 game series handily. The Euro team would surely flop a whole lot as well . . . the toughest guy on the European team would have to be either Kleiza or Okur, which says a whole lot.

"I was saying booo-urns . . . !" - Hans Moleman from The Simpsons. "Apparently" the NYC Crowd is not booing Chris Duhon. Or are they? Read it at What would Oakley Do? The Duhon/Fog Light analogy is as hilarious as it is apt -- and reason enough to read this article.

Apparently Jerry Sloan has been coaching the Jazz since the Ronald Reagan years . . . the Salt Lake Tribune brings the funk on that while I ponder just how many years I've been a fanatic fan of the NBA . . . and how much else I could have accomplished in my life if I was not . . .

YouTube Tuesdays! Millsap owns Kaman

Here are the highlights from last night's game . . . the last one is of the Millsap dunk on Kaman (including all of the great cheering from Boozer, Fesenko, Koufos, Price and a surprisingly mobile injured Deron Williams). It was a thing of beauty to cap Millsap's 15 points in a row effort against the LA Clippers. I liked how Korver hung in the air and passed it off for the sure thing, but I'm sure Korver would have made the shot anyway . . . still, the dunk is a total "Your Momma" dunk. You can read more of this jam and Millsap's play @ SLCDUNK; or alternatively, ESPN.COM

Game 3 Recap: Utah 89, LA Clippers 73

Game at a Glance:

The LA Clippers return home and return two star players to the active roster (Baron Davis and Marcus Camby) and hang tight for three quarters, only to allow Paul Millsap to outwork guys 4 inches taller than him and dominate the paint (he scored 15 points in a row for the Jazz in the 4th) while Carlos Boozer cheers from the bench. The Clippers went 9-20 from the free throw line while the Jazz made up for going 0-10 from three by going 25-31 from the line (despite Korver and Okur having 0-2 sequences from there early on). Jason Hart had a DNP-CD in Revenge Game #2.

Jazz Quartet -- Top Four Players of the Game:

Andrei Kirilenko	Paul Millsap	Mehmet Okur	Carlos Boozer
Photographed by Andrew D. Bernstein for NBAE/Getty Images	Photographed by Stephen Dunn for NBAE/Getty Images	Photographed by Noah Graham NBAE/Getty Images	Photographed by Stephen Dunn for NBAE/Getty Images
He locked down both Thornton & Mobley in the 2nd half *and* got a double double (15 points, 11 boards, 2 assists and 4 steals).	Scored 15 points and grabbed 5 board in a row in the 4th quarter to finish with 24 and 9. Added 2 assists, 2 steals and 1 block.	He let Andrei get a lot of his rebounds, and still has yet to hit a three; but his outside shot is getting better and scored 16 points (5/10 fg, 9 fta)	Boozer didn't dominate, and did not have to. In less than 30 mins he got 13 points (6/10) and had 8 boards.

Digging Deeper:

The Utah Jazz can finally say that they've beaten a team at full strength -- even if it was the first time Baron Davis and Marcus Camby actually played with each other. [I'm completely avoiding the easy dig at the Clippers and questioning how much of a 'team' they really are if all they do is isolate a wing and have him go one on one all night long.] Through the first three quarters this game was a pain to watch. The first quarter featured an overmatched C.J. Miles being absolutely torched by Al Thornton. The sophomore took it to the 4th year player and scored three times on Ceejay in the first 2 minutes of the game.

I don't want to be a dick here, well, maybe I do a little, but Morris Almond can get scored on just as easily . . . for those keeping score at home, Almond has played a little over 4 minutes this season and is shooting 67 fg%, and scored 5 points. CJ has played 44 minutes and shooting 33 fg% and scored 10 points. CJ also has one steal, 4 assists and 7 rebounds more than Almond . . . but he's played 11 times more minutes . . . I think Almond could pick up a steal and 4 assists in 40 minutes of action with the starters.

After Andrei came in the game Thornton only scored twice more the rest of the night. Mike Taylor got the start tonight for the Clippers while Jason Hart (who is having a hard time with the whole revenge game concept) got a DNP-CD. Baron Davis made an immediate impact in the game by hitting a three and pulling off one of those difficult DR.J flying out of bounds under the basket moves [see the move at 0:25 in this video if you don't know what I'm describing] that resulted in a nice pass to a cutting Camby. The Jazz starting guards were tepid in this game -- and made half of all their made field goals (2) in this quarter. The quarter ended 20-16 in favor of the home team.

Kirilenko is really taking command of this 2nd unit (that features Knight, Korver, Andrei (usually at the 2 on defense), Millsap and tonight Okur), and he is using his quicks to post up smaller guys and execute his patented alley-oop post up 180 layups while being fouled. Speaking of quicks, Millsap was using his face up / floor game to make some crazy layups and shots. You may remember that I suggested that Paul should use his speed and quickness more on offense . . . and he did tonight!

Utah's perimeter game hasn't been clicking (still looking for that first Money shot from Memo), and if the Jazz want to start beating good teams (instead of beating down on bad teams) then the offense needs to pick it up. What really saved us was our foul shooting (and the Clips bad luck there), you may also remember that we only beat the nuggets because of our foul shooting. So -- honestly -- we could be 1-2 right now if it wasn't for our luck at the stripe.

It's easy to fall in love with our defensive stats, but we've played some really bad teams,so there is no big secret WHY we've held teams to 82 ppg. It's because we played the Clippers twice and Denver without 'Melo. If we can keep teams under 90 after our brutal Eastern trip later this month then I'll be happily surprised. Almost as surprised as I was to see Korver miss two free throws in a row like he did right after hitting three in a row early on in this game. Korver did manage to net 7 points, grab 5 boards and steal the ball 3 times . . . had he made a few of this threes he easily would have been part of the Jazz Quartet up there.

Next Game: Wednesday November 5th, 2008 -- Portland @ Utah, 9:00 pm.

Team Russia дерьмо кровать !!!

Game 1: 102 - 61

Greece (2-2) put an Olympic sized beat down on Angola (0-4) and really, Angola is not doing well in this tournament at all. The Greeks shot 58.7 % for the game, while Angola shot 39.1 %. Greece was only up by 1 after the first quarter, but scored 69 points in the 2nd and 3rd quarters -- which would have still beaten Angola by 8. Looking at the box score it was a very dominant showing by Greece -- made even more so by the fact that Angola elected to only play their bench guys significant minutes in this game. For example, Carlos Morais, one of the top scorers in the entire tournament, did not even play a single minute in this game.

Game 2: 95 - 80

According to Google.com, that means sh!t the bed in Russian. And that's exactly what Team Russia (1-3)did getting beat down by Australia (2-2) by 15. Things aren't looking good for Andrei and crew, as they have only 5 points to their names. If they advance they are going to have to face either the mighty United States team or Team Spain -- who may have some unfinished business to help motivate them.

Australia D upped Russia pretty bad, forcing them into shooting 44.4% from the field and causing 16 turn overs. Andrew Bogut and C. J. Bruton both scored 22 for Australia, and won the game in the 1st quarter (27-16), Russia didn't get it going and faced an uphill climb from there. Holden had 20 points and 6 assists for Russia, and Viktor Khryapa finally showed up making all 6 of this three point attempts, while pulling down 9 boards and swatting 2 shots -- he led team Russia with 21. Andrei shot horribly, 1-10 in the game, he made all of his FTs this time around, and still managed 6 boards, 5 assists, 3 steals and a block. If Russia can get their good players to play well in the same game, they can beat any team. So far it has not happened in this tournament. After this type of upset loss, I don't know if Russia can still get back on track.

Game 3: 86 - 73

Lithuania restored order to the universe by knocking Croatia down a bit, the Lithuanians are 4-0 in this tournament and are looking at the podium. Croatia is down to 2-2 and depending on how things turn out in the last of the round-robin stage, may not advance. Croatia was actually up by 4 going into the final quarter, but Lithuania won that handedly (28-11), and did so in a convincing fashion. Ukic, owned by the Toronto Raptors, led his team with 13 points but shot abysmally -- 38.5% (which was still better than what Andrei brought to the table the last two games). Zoran had 11 but only played 16 minutes for some reason. Croatia's torrid shooting from deep finally cooled down, as they went 5/17.

Lithuania's balanced attack continues to roll on, Mindaugas Lukauskis had 20, Kleiza had 18 and Simas Jasaitis had 12. Sarunas Jasikevicius has 6 assists. Lukauskis and Kleiza gave Croatia a taste of their own medicine, going a combined 7/10 from three.

Game 4: 97 - 82

Argentina (2-2) took care of business against Team Iran (0-4) by 15. "Who's your" Ehadadi continues to play well, having a 21 and 16 game. Team Captain MSNB shot poorly, as he was the focus of the Argentinean defense. Hamed Afagh nailed four threes on his way to 19 points. But really, it was the Manu show -- 32 points (71.4 % shooting), 4 threes, 4 assists, 3 boards and a steal and a block. Luis Scola added 20 points and 7 rebounds and 2 steals. Guys like Oberto, Delfino and Nocioni didn't even have to shoot more than 13 entire times because Manu took care of business early.

Game 5: 59 - 55

China (2-2) holds on to win against the German (1-3) team -- proving to the world that Germany is a paper tiger after all. This was a Yao Ming vs. Dirk Nowitzki battle. Dirk had 24 points and 17 rebounds. Yao had 25 and 11 -- but more importantly, the win. China was up by 10 after the end of one. Germany stormed back to hold a 4 point lead at half. China erased that lead with a 20-8 3rd quarter. In the end, Germany did not have enough to pull out the come from behind win, eventually losing by 5. Germany made all 13 of their free throws, and China went to the line 21 times. Hmmmmm. Chris Kaman had 10 and 12, but no one else really showed up for Germany. Yi Jianlian had 9 and 11 for China.

Game 6: 119 - 82

There really isn't much to say about this game . . . LeBron James had 18 / 5 / 8 / 4, and eight guys scored at least 10 points for the good guys. The United States won each quarter 31-22, 30-23, 25-18 and 33-19 and Spain managed to shoot 39.4% for the game. They also were hounded into 28 turn overs. I have a very hard time conceptualizing a way that this, so called, 'Redeem Team' loses this tournament.

Olympic Ball Previews: 2nd games

I need to re-evaluate how I was listing my games. (As seen in the last post which suggests that those 6 games were over 2 days --- which they were if you follow the rules suggested by Sir Sanford Fleming in terms of this hypothetical international date line) Now I'm just going to blog about it in a different way -- so behold: the preview for the 2nd games for each team!

Here are the games comin' up:

• Lithuania (1-0) vs. Iran (0-1) [11.08.08 -- 9:00 PM EST]: I really want to like the Iranian team. They have heart and they have class. They aren't bad guys, they are guys who just want to play ball and represent their country. One of their best players recently died in a car accident (his brother is the star of their squad, Mohammad Samad Nikkhah Bahrami), and that's gotta totally suck. They are a quick, fast team that is very Golden State-like in that they live by the long ball and die by it too. Their stamina and depth are in question, and will not be able to handle the assassin like tenacity and cold blooded decision making ability of Lithuania. It wouldn't surprise me to see Ramunas Siskauskas or Sarunas Jasikevicius totally own the Iranians. They may have to put Linas Kleiza (hero of game 1) on Hamed 'Who's your daddy?' Ehadadi who is very long and very fast for a bigman. Lithuania should win this game going away.
• Russia (1-0) vs. Croatia (1-0) [11.08.08 -- 11:15 PM EST]: These two teams have a recent history of good games. Croatia is the (obviously) more talented offensive squad, while Team Russia is all about their shifting zone defense. If you haven't seen Russia play let me explain why what they do is effective. They are all long and quick. The whole point of the defense is to get a hand on passes and make deflections that result in steals for their side, and turn overs for the other team. Getting a steal (hypothetically) every 4th or 5th time on defense doesn't seem like much in a 100 possession game -- but Russia slows it down and grinds it out so it makes it that much more important to handle the ball (kinda like those "Czar of the Telestrator" Mike Fratello led Cleveland teams during the 1993-1994 to 1998-1999 seasons).  The last time that these two teams played for anything that mattered, Russia won 83-70 (11.09.07), and a motivated Russian squad took care of business in the 4th quarter in a very tight game. Hopefully history repeats itself and Russia wins.
• Germany (1-0) vs. Greece (0-1) [12.08.08 -- 2:30 AM EST]: Germany powered their way through a shrimpy Angolan team (tallest guys are 6'7) thanks to their two 7' NBA stars. They didn't play against Greece in the 2007 EuroBasket 07 tournament, but they will face a very hungry and humiliated Greek team that sports six guys who are at least 6'9. It is early, but you don't want to get too down in the preliminary rounds, so I implore the coaching staff to release the kraken Sofoklis Schortsianitis (aka. Baby Shaq) upon the bigger German squad. Greece should come back strong and win this game due to their above average guard and forward play. I'm still shocked at how badly Spain beat them down.
• Spain (1-0) vs. China (0-1) [12.08.08 -- 4:45 AM EST]: Things just don't get easier for Team China. Yao vs. Pau is fun. But Yao vs. Pau, Jose, Rudy, Ricky, Jorge and Marc is just not good TV. Yi better step it up, otherwise Nets fans (and China) are going to start getting worried. There's more to being a good player than being the best 24 year old 21 year old. The Spanish Armada continues to destroy all within its path.
• USA (1-0) vs. Angola (0-1) [12.08.08 -- 8:00 AM EST]: Maybe guys like Tay-Tay and Booz can get off the bench for this one? USA wins this one, by a lot.
• Argentina (0-1) vs. Australia (0-1) [12.08.08 -- 10:15 AM EST]: At the end of this game, one team will still remain winless. That team will most likely be Australia. For some reason the Aussie's went away from their only NBA guy and suffered a loss to Croatia. Argentina lost a highly contest match to Lithuania on a buzzer beater. They are going to come out and quickly establish they they are for real. Manu, Noce' and Carlos are just too dynamic for the Aussie guards.

Men's Olympic Basketball -- Day 1 + 2

USA 101 - China 70

Pretty much everyone saw this coming, you know, the redeem team coming out and winning despite showing some flaws. All that really needs to be said is that the final score was USA 101 - China 70. The United States had 54 bench points, and if it wasn't for an early three point barrage by the Chinese, this game would have been over much before halftime. The Americans shot 54.3% from the field, had a +3 rebounding margin, +5 on assists, made the Chinese turn it over 18 times and won steals 14 to 2. Yi, particularly, played like ass when it counted. Yao Ming can't do it all by himself. LeBron had 18/6/3/1/3, and was pretty much a beast. Dwyane Wade (off the bench) "was unstoppable" (KOGOD, via Deadspin), and had 19,0,2,2,0 off of perfect shooting (5-5 fg, 7-7 ft). Both bench point guards (Chris Paul and Deron Williams) clearly outplayed Jason Kidd. Kidd played only 13 minutes, but managed to have zero assists and 3 turn overs. He also added 2 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 block. He did not take a shot and did not score. Deron had 9 points (3-7, 1-3, 2-2), 4 rebounds, and 1 assist. Chris had 3 points, 3 rebounds, and 6 assists.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

Boozer (or Betrayal Skull Dude, according to the Cleveland Plan Dealer's interpretation of Chinese  nicknames for NBA players) played 8 mins (2nd least of all Americans to Tayshaun Prince) and managed to get 5 points, 3 boards, 1 assist and 1 steal in that time (shooting 1-2, and 3-4 from the ft line). Michael Redd was great off the bench and hit a lot of threes -- something the Americans will need a lot of, as the rest of the teams are going to zone against the USA.

USA faces Angola on next, and China fights for their lives against Spain -- both on Tuesday.

Russia 71 - Iran 49

The Russian team (that won the FIBA Europe tournament, even beating Spain on their homecourt in the finals) is a good team. They are a good team because they control the tempo of the game and really slow it down and play super defense. After the 1st quarter it was Russia 24 - Iran 5. They only won by 22 points, but they (like the Americans) shot 50% while holding the other team in the 30% range. Russia had a +12 turn over mark, had +9 more steals and did it on defense. We've seen this Iranian team before, and know that they aren't at full strength. They are fast and can catch fire from deep (like the Golden State Warriors, in that regard), they did manage to hurt the Russian zone by shooting 43.8% from deep. (Something the Americans would not be able to do, methinks) That Hamed Ehadadi guy had 9/8/2/1/2 in 34 minutes of action. Mohammad Samad Nikkhah Bahrami did his Iverson impersonation and had 16 points off of 16 shots. This is the Russian defense displaying their ability to play other teams' tendencies against themselves. Andrei Kirilenko did his all around point forward thing by getting 15 (5-7, 1-2, 4-5), 5, 0 assists (surprising!), 1 steal and 3 blocks. Viktor Khryapa and Sergei Monya had bad games, but American born point guard John Robert Holden (or as ESPN thinks, "Kholden") had 19 points, 3 boards, 3 assists and 5 steals.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

Russia faces off Croatia next, while Iran faces the Lithuanian team -- both on Monday

Lithuania 79 - Argentina 75

Manu goes down! Linas Kleiza hit the game winner in this game, making a shot but leaving the Argentines enough time to respond -- but they botched the play while Ginobli (totally out of character) complained to the refs. "It was not a difficult shot . . . I was able to knock it down," (Linas Kleiza,via FIBA.com webpage) said after the game. The NBA players for the losing team all had solid games: Luis Scola had 10 and 6, Andres Nocioni had 15 and 9, Fabricio Oberto had 9 and 11, and Manu had 19 (but he and Noce went a combined 2-14 from downtown). Recently departed Carlos Delfino had 13, 6, 2 and 3 off the bench. Yet they still lost as Ramunas Siskauskas, Robertas Javtokas, Sarunas Jasikevicius (also 8 dimes), Kleiza and Marijonas Petravicius all had 10 or more points in a balanced attack. The Lithuanians (as some Americans have not completely blocked out) are a great outside shooting team and almost shot better from three than they did overall: 40% 3pt to 43.1% fg !!!

Photographed by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images

Lithuania looks to go 2-0 when they play Iran (on Monday), while Argentina faces Australia on Tuesday

Spain 81 - Greece 66

Beatdown city, Beijing, China. This game was supposed to be as entertaining as the Lithuania vs. Argentina game, though this was quite one-sided as Spain exploded in the 3rd quarter to solidify a 16 point lead heading into the 4th. Hardwood Paroxysm took the time to LiveBlog this game, and you can read it here. Spain is just too talented for the Gestalt approach that Greece brings (maybe they need Kosta Koufos after all?), as Pau Gasol, Jose Manuel Calderon, Rudy Fernandez, Juan Carlos Navarro and alternate stars Raul Lopez, Marc Gasol and Jorge Garbajosa are all capable of playing excellent ball. Spain is both big (Marc Gasol), talented (Pau Gasol, Juan Carlos Navarro), fast (Jose Manuel Calderon, Ricky Rubio) or really athletic (Rudy Fernandez). In fact, Spain may be the 2nd best team (on paper) in the entire Olympics. The game would have been much closer had Greece not shot 11-24 from the Free Throw line, or alternatively, if Spain didn't shoot 22-25 from the stripe. I don't even need to go over the stats for this one. Needless to say, Vasileios Spanoulis, Dimitrious Diamantidis, Konstantinos Tsartsaris, and Antonios Fotsis need to regroup and play their style of ball -- ball that has been very successful in previous years.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

 Spain faces China, while Greece will have their hands full with Germany, both on Tuesday

Croatia 97 - Australia 82

Some may suggest that the Boomers awful start (down 14 - 21 after one) killed them, in an otherwise really close game. I, rather, point to the fact that their 2nd quarter showing (down 17 to 26) was much worse. It's going to be hard for Australia to beat any team -- let alone teams that are better than they are, like Croatia -- when their best player (Andrew Bogut) only shoots the ball three times, and finishes with 10 points, 1 rebound and no blocks. The Aussie's still shot 50.8 fg% for the game, but need to learn to play defense -- Croatia worked the ball for good shots and ended up shooting 66.7 fg% for the game, and even shot 12-16 (75.0%) from three. That's never going to get it done. Croatia is a strong squad -- and didn't even bring all of their best players to this tournament. In fact, there are no NBA guys on this team (as Gordan Giricek isn't even asked to play for them, and Zoran Planinic is no longer playing for the shitty US dollar). There will be enough time to say good things about the play of Zoran, Roko-Leni Ukic and Marko Banic during the rest of the games -- lets focus on the bench. Nikola Prkacin (16 points, 5-5 and 6-7), Marko Tomasovic (12 points, 4-6, 4-4 from three) (aka. Marko Tomas) and Kresimir Loncar (10 points, 10 rebounds, 1 three) really brought it for Croatia, and arguably, played better than the three best Aussie starters.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

Croatia faces Russia on Monday, Australia will tip off against the Argentines on Tuesday

Germany 95 - Angola 66

While Angola held tough in the first quarter, Germany exploded for 29 points in the 2nd, and the rout was on. The German twin towers had 24 (Chris Kaman) and 23 (Dirk Nowitzki) respectively. The Rhinelanders were just too big for the quick, but smaller Angolans -- Jan-Hendrik Jagla came of Germany's bench to have collect half as many rebounds (11) as the Angola had all game (22) ... and he did so in only 18 minutes. Germany displayed a very efficient attack (58.6 fg%, 55.0 3pt%), but one wonders just how well they would perform against a larger club (like China or Russia), or a more talented one (like Spain, Argentina or the United States). For Angola, only Eduardo Mingas (think Gilbert Arenas, but shorter) shot above 50%, as he finished with 24 points. The rest of the starters for the FIBA Africa champions shot 5 for 25 combined. That's not going to get it done. I fully expect Olimpio Cipriano, Milton Barros, Joaquim Gomes, Armando Costa and Carlos Morais to play better in the next game. Well, I actually don't. They will play the United States in the next game. Poor poor Angola still hasn't recovered from the abuse Barkley gave them.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

Germany faces off against a hungry Greek squad, while Angola gets to tangle with the USA on Tuesday

Standings!

Group A		Wins	Losses	Points		Group B		Wins	Losses	Points
	Croatia	1	0	2			Germany	1	0	2
	Lithuania	1	0	2			Spain	1	0	2
	Russia	1	0	2			USA	1	0	2
	Iran	0	1	1			Angola	0	1	1
	Argentina	0	1	1			Greece	0	1	1
	Australia	0	1	1			China	0	1	1

Not-so-Jazzy nicknames . . .

Nicknames are all but dead in today's NBA . . . occasionally you'll get something good and simple like "Flash" for Dwyane Wade; or something that's a slight play off of a popular culture, like "The Matrix" for Shawn Marion. Unfortunately, the vast majority of nicknames are copy-cat nomenclature based off of the 'hip and cool' names that developed in the EARLY 90's, like C-Webb (Chris Webber) or J-Kidd (Jason Kidd). Some people notice that names like D-Will and Dwight-How are kind of -- well, uninspiring. For example, some individuals are trying to call Howard the Centaur (as he is reportedly half man and half beast), but that has not stuck at all outside of one website. Do you remember names like The Round Mound of Rebound, or Magic, or The Human Highlight Reel (or Film depending on which source you cite)? I remember names like that, and other names too: like Dr.J, or Pistol, or even something apt like the Microwave. Let's look at some of the current Jazz player nicknames, and then let's try to find something better, shall we?

First the Starters:

Deron Williams, PG, #8 "D-Will"	D-Will is his current nickname; others include Kingpin and D-Nasty (though I've never heard of those); additionally Hot Rod Hundley tried to call him "Slick Willy" for a while. I don't like it. It sounds like a sex thing. Horny is okay, because it's a condition, Slick Willy is an organ. Too risque for my tastes. Let's get away from the "W" for a rhyme, and rhyme on the D. I'd be more than happy with calling him The Dominator. (Hey, Dominic Hasek wouldn't mind...) His game is a series of moves which display not just dominance, but also straight up ownership of his opponents. (Look at the head-to-head with Chris Paul) He can kill teams with threes, or passes, or just flat out beating him man with his ball handling skills and dunking on the other teams center. (Right Chris and Tyson?) Additionally, no less than Larry H. Miller (you know this guy) said on the radio that his personality is such that he does not take pleasure in winning something unless there is some risk involved. He's not happy winning for the sake of winning, he is happy only by beating someone. For Deron to truly win someone has to lose. He is The Dominator.
Ronnie Brewer, SG, #9 "Brewdog"	Ronnie B is so junior high. Would we still call him something like this if we didn't have Price on the team? According to Jazzbots.com (?) he is Batman. (???) Mahalo.com (? part deux) suggests that his nickname is not Batman, but "Brewdog". Both of those names are more creative than "Ronnie B", so they get points. Unfortunately, both of those names still are pretty dumb. (No offense intended Ronnie Brewer, if indeed your nickname is Brewdog and you approve of it) It's still a name that is more than anything, a product of his name (Brewer). Would Antoine Carr have a cool nickname if his was Carrdog? No. He is the Big Dawg. (The O.G., not Glenn Robinson). I rest my case. His game is high flying and he has serious hang time. Let's call him Air Arkansas, or possibly Razorback Airlines or something a bit more creative than Mrs. Ward's 3rd grade class. If we can't remove ourselves from his name, then how about "Air Brewer" (in that Jordanesque type of way)?
Andrei Kirilenko, SF, #47 "AK-47"	Yeah, his home town is the same place where they manufacture those Russian guns, and those are his initials, and his player number -- and I guess his 38% 3pt shooting last season is pretty indicative of marksmanship . . . this nickname is creative enough for me to not mess with, especially since he's had it since he was a rookie over 7 years ago. It's pretty much untouchable right now, not unlike his contract. This guy is a weapon, he is AK-47.
Carlos Boozer, PF, #5 "C-Booz"	C-Booz. Really, this is a horrible nickname. Like: 'See spot run.' See Booz. Dumb name. Apparently he was called 'Los back in High school. We should probably aspire to name him after something wild and dangerous, not unlike that Grizzly bear tattoo on his arm . . . hmmm . . . what's wild and dangerous, and possible indigenous to where he developed a lot of his game? Hmmmm, I must be missing something obvious here . . . Alternative could involve him being a "Bruiser"; but I take a look at the fact that he was born in Aschaffenburg, (West) Germany, and thus, pronounce his surname like "Boots-zehrr" on occasion. Apparently his alternative nickname is "Booze" . . . which is a great name, imagine the levels of creativity needed to take off the last letter of someone's surname! All these years we've looked for a nickname for John Stockton, and it's been right there all this time! "Malone gets the pass from Stockto, and shoots it off the glass!" - Hot Rod
Mehmet Okur, C, #13 "Memo"	Memo. This name is also going to be hard for people to break away from as it's easy. His website url is even memo13.com, so I guess that's pretty much a wrap. Bolerjack calls him the Moneyman on occasion. I'd prefer to call him The Janissary. What is a Janissary? They were powerful Turkish (Ottoman) infantry soldiers who adopted quickly to firearms, including hand cannons and muskets. They hit the long bomb, basically, back in the mid 1300's. Mehmet is Turkish, Janissaries are Turkish -- both had funky costumes and facial hair. It seems like a good match. The only other thing is his sponsorship of some Turkish fruit juice product tie-in . . . the video (like that 5 Shaq's vs. 5 Shaq's commercial from way back when) is great. I don't think anyone wants to call him the Juice man or anything like that . . . Boler is all over the "Moneyshot" already. Let's not involve other fluids. The chances of any of these names sticking is slim, though some of these guys deserve better than a sophomoric play on their names.

Come back later this week for (better) bench nicknames!