"That Memo is so hot right now" - Mugatu

Mehmet Okur, since the start of February, has made 24 of 39 threes. Looks bad, doesn't it? Well, that's 61.538 %. I felt like looking it up because the guys over at Dimemag mentioned how 'great' LeBron is shooting since the All-Star Break from deep (14-30, 46%). Yeah, if LeBron is hot from deep, Memo is an inferno right now -- over a longer stretch of time as well. Memo has upped his three point shooting % to a career high 48.5% for the season with this hot streak . . . that's good enough for 3rd best in the league right now. Also take note that he's not a specialist spot up shooter like guys like Bonner or Murphy, the only guy who has a higher scoring average on that list then Memo is Durant, who is way down to #9, Memo scores inside and out to the tune of over 18 ppg right now. When was the last time a center was in the top 5? Never, right? If you didn't get what that quote is from, it's from the movie Zoolander . . . you can watch part of the running gag here. Hmmm, today seems to be the Will Ferrell Day here at All That Jazz.

The Jedi Voodoo Mind Trick Hype Machine

It should come as no surprise that after the Jazz started to get a) some of their injured guys back, and b) allowed some of their banged up guys (who were still playing) to get well again that c) the Jazz would start to win some games. Similarly so, people all over the world would start lauding Utah again. This has been par for the course over the last few seasons. In the 2004-2005 season the Jazz won only 26 games. Why? Not because of any extra-ordinary amount of 'suck', but because of injuries. (AK and Booz were out almost all of the season EACH) The next year -- when healthy -- the Jazz almost made the playoffs. End result: people started to talk about the Jazz. Since that time, the Jazz have increased their wins in each of the successive seasons. Alas, it would be folly to suggest that the Jazz did better when they weren't flying under the radar.

They do. A small market team that no one likes tends to band together better with the 'us against the world' attitude that happens with multiple all-star snubs, and poor projected win numbers. When everyone is flying high with the Jazz bad things happen. (After all, that 2004-2005 season where the Jazz won only 26 games was supposed to be a big win season according to ESPN.com, they had improved themselves the most over the off-season in their power rankings) Perhaps being disregarded early (due to poor playing in December and January each season) helps the team mentally get ready to "show everyone" that they were wrong for counting out the Jazz.

After all, no one was talking Jazz at the All-Star breaks the last few seasons (except for last season maybe), but each time the team is able to have spectacular runs in the final 30 games of the season and have won their division twice in a row. The mental edge that some of our players hone due to being passed over may not be so sharp right now when everyone and their grandmother is counting the Jazz in this time around.

Hollinger, of ESPN.com, once suggested that the Jazz would be the team to watch in 2009. Even after the season of injuries that the Jazz have suffered so far, he contends that the Jazz can still win the division. Mark Stein, also of ESPN.com, moved the Jazz up to 9th best in the league in his power rankings, and in his chat later on this week suggested that he should have moved then up to 7th best.  Chad Ford, again, ESPN.com, chimed in yesterday that when healthy "the Jazz . . . are the Lakers biggest competition in the West." Skeets and Tas over at TheBasketballJones suggest that the Jazz *are* this good, and only injuries got in the way.

As nice as all of this sounds, even the most vocal, yet highly respected, detractors of the Jazz have gotten on the respect wagon of late. AOL's NBA Fanhouse could be my browser homepage, their contributors get the news out from all over the league onto the net almost faster than anyone else. They recently had a roundtable discussion on the Jazz, and anyone who knows their writers knows not to expect glowing reviews. Matt Moore has contested for quite a long time that the Jazz are paper tigers. [fair enough...] He, however, did recant somewhat on his own blog, the amazing Hardwood Paroxysm, with his post "In the interest of fairness". (SLCDunk.com quoted MM yesterday on his LHM tribute) Moore even suggests that reading the comments in the Fanhouse roundtable elicited him to dig a little deeper.

"But I read the comments on our round table today, which featured an amazing combination of actually lucid, intelligent commenters, and I realized that I just didn’t fully give the story."

I'm guessing he wasn't talking about the comment calling everyone a moron, but perhaps maybe this one started things off. That "Doc A" guy sounds really smart. Now only if he had a blog that he could post his thoughts on . . . one that properly formatted itself depending on the browser settings of the viewer . . . grrrr. [For those who didn't get it, I'm "Doc A"] Tom Ziller (you should know who this guy is if you like reading basketball on the internet) goes where no one else has gone before and even suggests that we should, collectively, "Fear the Utah Jazz".

The recent love for the Jazz extends beyond the reaches of ESPN.com's columnists or bloggers . . . Kenny Smith (who has two rings), despite not being able to pronounce Deron Williams' name, goes out and heaps praise on our, small market team. Charley Rosen, Phil Jackson's butt buddy, is an opinionated old coot whose analysis of games is limited to whatever game is on cable TV that month. Dude doesn't even go to games. Essentially, if you look past his mediocre success as an assistant coach in the CBA he has no greater insight into the game than anyone else with a remote control and a laptop. This week he found it within his back heart to say something nice about our players -- one in particular -- the same one that Kenny Smith can't pronounce despite covering him for at least two rounds in each of the last two playoffs. All of this must sound great if you are a Jazz fan, right? On one hand it either shows that the world at large is a) respecting our team, or b) had their head so far up their sigmoid colon that they merely overlooked the Jazz and their lower seed record as evidence that the Jazz were just a bad team. I don't particularly find much comfort in either answer.

The Jazz don't do well with hype. You can look back and see what happened in that eventful 2004-2005 season, or look farther back at what happened in the 1998-1999 playoffs . . . or still farther back to one of those 5 first round exists during the early Stockton & Malone era after looking so good at such a young age by taking the Lakers to 7 games in 1987-1988. Hype can dull the edge, or worse, completely remove the chip off of the shoulders of our hungrier players. By giving the Jazz too much hype, perhaps, our expectations for them will never be attainable? Partly because of our expectations, but alternatively, also due to the hype removing some of the focused insanity that motivates people when they feel disrespected. Utah needs all the focus they can get, just look at their road record vs. under .500 teams . . . they don't play well unless they feel like they have something to prove.

So please, for the sake of the Jazz, don't hype them.

Utah Jazz 2008-2009 Playing time and Rotation:

One of the greatest strengths for the Utah Jazz this season is the versatility of the roster. Even Jerry Sloan has seen it and he's fiddled with a variety of line-ups, everything from the very small (5'10 Brevin Knight, 6'1 Ronnie Price and 6'5 C.J. Miles as the 1, 2 and 3) to the very large (6'8 Paul Millsap at small forward, 7'1 Kosta Koufos at the four, and 7'1 Kyrylo Fesenko in the middle). In all only two players out of our total 15 man roster are an exclusivists in that they only play one position. Brevin Knight is a pure point guard who does not have the offensive range, or size to play shooting guard. Similarly, Kyrylo Fesenko is too big to play power forward, and he would be a liability on defense trying to guard people like Amare and David West one on one. Everyone else can play at least two spots -- and as a result, gives Jerry Sloan and the rest of the Jazz Brass a lot of chances to fiddle away. Here's a visual representation of the five different positions, and the guys who could conceivably play there during the course of any given game:

Point Guard	Shooting Guard	Small Forward	Power Forward	Center
Deron Williams	Ronnie Brewer	Andrei Kirilenko	Carlos Boozer	Mehmet Okur
Ronnie Price	Kyle Korver	Matt Harpring	Paul Millsap	Jarron Collins
Brevin Knight	C.J. Miles	C.J. Miles	Andrei Kirilenko	Kyrylo Fesenko
Andrei Kirilenko	Morris Almond	Kyle Kover	Mehmet Okur	Kosta Koufos
C.J. Miles	Andrei Kirilenko	Morris Almond	Kosta Koufos	Carlos Boozer
	Deron Williams	Paul Millsap
	Ronnie Price
	Matt Harpring

Unfortunately, the game is only 48 minutes long, and you can only play a maximum of 12 total guys in any given game. You would think, then, that there is a maximum total of 48 minutes available for each position, and thus -- 240 minutes per game to dish out. The math makes sense so far but gets more complicated when you look at the actual MPG from the team last season. Basically, the math does not add up. This is because not every player plays in every game. For example there are 48 minutes to give out at center . . . and last year our centers averaged 33.2 mpg (Okur), 10.0 mpg (Collins), and 7.8 mpg (Fesenko). That adds up to 51 minutes, which is 3 minutes over. Further muddying the waters is that Carlos played some five last season as well. As you can see, trying to reverse engineer a playing time chart based on the MPG played last season is not as easy as one would have previously thought.

I first tried to construct a playing time chart based upon the 240 minutes total theory, but that basically would result in some very upset players (we can't reasonably expect to give Matt Harpring DNP's all season long). Last season if you added up all of the MPG averages for all players (making up for Brevin Knight by using Jason Hart's time) the total was 277.9 mpg. That 37.9 extra mpg makes up for how some players do not play in every game, and how other players end up getting injured and so forth. However, that was for a total roster of 14 people -- and this season we have a full 15 man roster. In order to get what the new total should be I found the average playing time of what we had previously (278/14) and added that to 278. Thus, when I constructed my playing time chart I made it out of a total 298 minutes, and not 240. What do I end up with? (All the MPG for last season was rounded up or down accordingly)

	2007-2008 MPG	Proposed 2008-2009 MPG	+ / -	Justification?
Point Guard
D. Williams	37	37	0	He doesn't need to play any more or any less, though our depth allows for him to play less this season.
R. Price	10	10	0	Price will play in more games this season than Knight, and this, will average less MPG as his mins will fluctuate.
B. Knight	23	10.5	-12.5	Knight will be playing nearly 13 mpg less than he did last season with the LA Clippers, and he will be playing in less games as the 3rd string PG. However, the games he will be playing in will be games where he plays more mpg as they will be games where Deron is out of.
Shooting Guard
R. Brewer	28	29	+1	Brewer needs more playing time, but it's hard to get more.
K. Korver	22	21	-1	Kyle is playing great right now, but for us to be a really good team, he may have to just play better with less time, as we need defense.
M. Almond	4	9	+6	Almond is going to spend most of the season with the Flash again, and not see significant burn during the season. That said, he's going to play more MPG in the NBA this year.
Small Forward
C.J. Miles	12	16	+4	C.J. is starting for now, and needs to make the best of his time on the floor -- lest others take it from him.
Andrei Kirilenko	31	37	+6	I have my reasons, you can read about them here if you wish.
Matt Harpring	18	13.5	-4.5	This is justified by his MPG trends over the last 4 seasons compounded by his cumulative injury history.
Power Forward
Carlos Boozer	35	35	0	Boozer seems to do well in this amount of playing time, though in a contract year he may want more, though . . .
Paul Millsap	21	23	+2	. . . Paul Millsap is also in a contract year. There are only so many minutes to go around at the PF, so expect Boozer to be the back-up Center for us this season.
Center
Mehmet Okur	33	35	+2	Memo plays better when he plays more, need empirical proof? Read this take.
Jarron Collins	10	6	-4	Collins needs zero MPG, but it's not going to happen. Too bad!
Kyrylo Fesenko	8	11	+3	The only way that he's going to be the defensive big that we need is if he gets some time actually playing against guys like Bynum, Dwight, Yao and Oden. Nearly a quarter of every game he plays in should feature him getting said experience.
Kosta Koufos	n/a	5	+5	His job this year will be to play well in Orem, playing more MPG than Almond did in the NBA as a rookie will just be the icing on top.

This does cause some problems when trying to understand how any random, given game will go. The way I look at it, a random game somewhere after the all-star break will feature Morris Almond (Flash), Kosta Koufos (Flash) and CJ Miles on the IR. Harpring will be back, and playing minutes for us (you know, because he's Matt Harpring). So this is how I could reasonably accept the playing time to be divided:

PG		SG		SF		PF		C
D. Williams	37	R. Brewer	29	A. Kirilenko	35	C. Boozer	25	M. Okur	35
R. Price	7	K. Korver	19	M. Harpring	10	P. Millsap	21	C. Boozer	10
B. Knight	4			K. Korver	3	A. Kirilenko	2	K. Fesenko	3
Totals	48		48		48		48		48

Sure, this is playing 11 guys like Jarron Collins gets the DNP-CD . . . but I can see Price picking up two fouls in the 1st half making Knight need to get off the bench. Similarly, Okur could sit at the end of the first half letting Fes get some burn. I think it is important to stress that Jerry Sloan will like to keep 3 PGs on the active roster for as many games as he can. Back when the Jazz only used to keep 12 people on the roster there were always three PGs signed. (Yeah, like back in the Stockton, Farmer, Les days when current Memphis Coach Mark Iavaroni used to start for the Jazz) Also, I think Sloan wants to have at least 5 bigs: three of which will be Boozer, Okur and Millsap. For this game I felt like he'd want to have the veteran Collins there, as he always seems to be on the active roster for games, and Fesenko -- as Koufos would be currently assigned to the Flash at this point in time. I would rather have Harpring be on the IR, and have CJ be active . . . but Harpring is going to play this season, even in my hypothetical scenarios.

This is way more than I ever wanted to type about this . . . it's not like Sloan is going to listen to me, and recognize the optimum playing times for certain players (i.e. Memo @ 35+, AK @ 37, etc.), and let them play that much time. So in a way this was completely pointless . . . but in another way, this is the essence of blogging. It's all very Taoist in that regard.

Things to look for this season: Ronnie Price

There are many ways to start this off, and I will receive some level of criticism for what I'm about to say, but here it is: Ronnie Price looks like a goat to me. Maybe a baby goat. I don't know, maybe a cartoon goat. Or perhaps a ram, but without the horns. Tell me you don't see it, too!
	Ronnie Price	A happy smiling goat

Maybe it's just the facial hair . . .

Okay, before the nice men in the white coats come to take my Internet privileges away from me let me get to the serious stuff. First off, congratulations to Ronnie for getting married this off-season, I don't know who you got married to, so I can't 'tag' her. (Like I have with other Jazz player's wives so far: CeCe Boozer, Masha Kirilenko nee Lopatov, Yeliz Okur, etc) The first big thing to consider for this season (in terms of Ronnie Price) is that he's in a contract year. Much has already been made about the number of expiring contracts (or potentially expiring ones) this season (6, at my last count). The big names are Boozer and Okur, I don't know if both will opt out or not, but odds are that Boozer will. Millsap's rookie deal expires this year as well -- and what happens with Booz will really determine what happens with Millsap to some extent. Jarron Collins' contract expires as well, and depending on how well Kosta and Kyrylo develop this season Jarron could hopefully be gone. The last two guys are, because the universe likes co-incidences, Brevin Knight and Ronnie Price.

If you haven't been following Ronnie Price's career, this is pretty much his own version of Sisyphus' challenge. His entire career he's had to make a living by beating other guys out for playing time. He did it two years ago in Sacramento (beating Jason Hart out). He did it last year in Utah (again beating Jason Hart out). And he's basically going to have to do it a 3rd year in a row, having to attempt to beat out Jason Hart the guy they traded Jason Hart for (Brevin Knight). Brevin also being in a contract year makes this even 'better', in terms of entertainment value. They are in direct competition with each other for this season -- and the next ones too! The only way to make things a little bit harder for Price would be if his coach decides 'just for fun' (in that exaggerated East Indian accent that Russell Peters has sometimes) to stop playing him at point guard -- and have him fight for playing time against 4 shooting guards (Brewer, Korver, Miles and Almond). Sounds dumb, right? Sounds even better from Jerry's own mouth [Interview, around the 1:54 to 4:13 mark, via 1320 KFAN]. For the record though, he does compliment Price as well during that answer, and suggests that his versatility allows him to play alongside Knight for a really small, quick line-up.

Basically, then, all Ronnie Price has to do is beat out Knight, and his future here in Utah will be secure, well it should be, right Mo Williams? Price has some advantages though, as he's been here last season, won the job, and played in every playoff game. Furthermore, he's a popular guy (in that younger crew with Millsap, Brewer and Miles) and the Jazz went 43-18 in games that he played in. That's winning 70.5 % of those games -- good enough for a 58 win season over 82 games. Here are three things to look out for this season from Ronnie Price:

1. Hustle every minute on the floor: Deron Williams plays so much point guard that there is very little time remaining for the other guys. There's going to be 8-12 minutes per game available by my estimation, and that's not nearly enough to play all three guys every game. What Price will do is hustle and play very hard in whatever time he has. Brevin Knight isn't going to jump up there and slam down alley-oops, or run back and block guys on fast breaks. Those are the types of plays that'll help get Price another contract with the Jazz -- especially if he plays within the offense and runs the team well.
2. Be available (and healthy) to play in 80+ games: Knight gets injured every year. He's never played over 80 games and whatever slim window of playing time exists has to be maximized by Price. Price needs to be available every game to go in and give Deron a breather. Especially in the cases where Knight is going to be injured and unavailable to play. It sounds simple, but it makes sense. One easy way to distinguish himself from his competition is be healthy. Coach is going to go with the guys on the roster who can play. Sometimes it doesn't have to be complicated. Knight averages 59 games played a season over his career. There is a window of opportunity for Price here, even if it's not wide open.
3. Eventually beat out Brevin Knight: I'm going to come out and say it -- there are going to be some situations all year where one of the two guys is going to get to play, and the other guy will sit. There will be situations where one guy is favored to play over the other (match-ups, etc). Also, there could be some times on the court where they both play at the same time. Out of all of those situations I think that the veteran leadership of Brevin Knight is going to be a stabilizing force for our team. I just can't bet against Ronnie Price. He's a smaller, scrappy guard who has three point range and has been in this situation before. Knight is smaller, scrappier, and much better than Jason Hart (the guy Price used to beat out each of those previous times), but I think Price has more fight in him. If Knight gets decked by Turiaf I see him on the floor for a while. Price got decked and was ready to fight. It's probably this fight that's going to win him the job sometime after the All-Star Break.

If he doesn't win, I'm sure he'll stick around next year as well, providing he doesn't ask for the bank to be broken for him. So we'll see his smiling goat face for seasons to come! Ronnie: "That's right Kyle, you know what I'm thinking . . . time to double team the ball handler . . . "

YouTube Tuesdays! Mehmet Okur Interview Drinking Game

Let's get this out in the open to begin with. I love Mehmet Okur. He's a big, tall, slightly goofy European bigman who averaged 17 and 10 after the All-Star break last season (2007-2008) and hits clutch three pointers. He seems like a fun loving family man who jokes around with his team mates. He just sounds really shy in interviews (in English, not his mother tongue) . . . I've gone out of my way to listen to how he speaks, and he seems to have a few "go-to-moves" when giving an interview. Thus, it is only necessary to make a drinking game out of it.

Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty Images

Each time Memo says one of these words or phrases take the required number of sips. Please remember to drink responsibly, around people who care about you, and in a safe place. Do not drink and drive, or drink and draft (if you play fantasy basketball).

working	defense	my shot(s)	my teammates	I mean	hard
like	myself	try	feel good	y'know	run
hopefully	probably	so far so good	good "anything"	confidence	(at) home
like I said	open shots	look for me	uuhhhhh	play	hungry

There was a post game interview on TNT with Memo where he basically said all of those 'go to' interview phrases. I can no longer find it on YouTube, so that sucks. But in the mean time, here are a few videos and mp3s to test out this game with:

	Memo and Booz interviewed during the All-Star weekend back in 2006-2007.
Memo Interview (Oct 17, 2007)	Talking after a game vs. Philly in the preseason
	Playing hard, being 'hot', and making shots.
Memo Interview (Oct 14th, 2008)	Talks about defense and other stuff.
	Memo talks about shutting down Dwight Howard
Memo Interview (Oct 2nd, 2008)	Talking about training camp, and his body fat.
	Talking about going on the road and taking people off the dribble.

Hope you guys aren't too wasted yet, and thanks to Basketballjohn.com (YouTube user utahbasketballjohn) and, as always, 1320 KFan radio. And yes, this YouTube Tuesday is a day late ... again. Whatever man, some of us don't blog for our living . . . (or have the talent to do so).

Flashback Friday: All-Star Game Introduction Rap

This has already made the rounds quite a bit, but well, it's been a long week with few postings . . . maybe next week will be better . . .

It's from the 1988-1989 All-Star Game that was played in Houston. (Karl Malone was the MVP of this game . . .)

Utah Jazz 2008-2009 Schedule Analysis

No doubt you know the NBA released the 2008-2009 NBA Regular Season Schedule. (well, they may have released some other things too, but that's still all pretty hush-hush) I haven't had some time to look at the schedules for the other teams yet, but I will in time. But let's take a look at how things will shape up month-by-month.

Month-by-month at a glance:

Month	# Games	Home	Away	vs. West	vs. East	vs. Playoff Teams	vs. West Playoff Teams
Oct/Nov	18	10	8	10	8	6	3
Dec	15	6	9	6	9	8	3
Jan	15	8	7	12	3	8	6
Feb	11	8	3	8	3	5	3
Mar	15	6	9	8	7	9	5
Apr	8	3	5	8	0	5	5

October/November: There's only 1 game in October, so I included it here for the rest of November. April looks tough, as usual.

Home vs. Road:

The Jazz have 5 road trips this season that of at least 3 games. (Three road trips are of 5 games in length!) The first trip is In November and features New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Charlotte and Cleveland. This trip is a single, then a pair of back-to-backs, and last three games are the 3rd game in four nights. The last game of the trip (vs. Cleveland) will also be the 4th game in five nights for us. New York is a must win as they are the worst team of that bunch, and we need a win in MSG badly. Philly/Washington is a pretty hard back-to-back as Philly has improved vastly this off-season and Washington is always tough with Agent Zero, Caron Butler, Antwan Jamison and crew. The Bobcats game should be better (but they have some good players), and I can fully expect another loss in Cleveland. The more I look at it, the more brutal this road trip looks. I wouldn't be surprised if we got 1-4 on it.

In December there's another Eastern trip that's Boston, New Jersey, Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee. Only the Detroit/Chicago games are a back-to-back this time around. (The game vs. the Bulls will also be the 3rd game in four nights) We won in Boston last season, but there's no guarantee that we'll do it again. The Nets seem to have our number and the Jazz need to establish that they can beat these Eastern Conference Non-Playoff teams on the road. With my luck I'll be super busy the night of the Detroit game and end up missing it again. Chicago should be playing better at this point in the season again. The Jazz finish their 2nd 5 game road trip in as many months with a game against Milwaukee. This trip is easier than the first one, it's only against two playoff teams, and not three like the last trip. Also, there's only one back-to-back, and only one game is a 3rd game in four nights deal.

January holds at quick three game road trip against Oklahoma City, Memphis and Dallas. The Memphis/Dallas set is a back-to-back, and the Dallas game is the 3rd game in four nights.

In March the Jazz play their last 5 game road trip, against the Toronto Raptors, Indiana Pacers, Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat and finishing with the Orlando Magic. Three of these five teams are playoff teams and this road trip is a single followed by a pair of back-to-backs. Toronto should be a win, as should Indiana;, Atlanta, Miami and Orlando all have the capabilities to beat the Jazz when the Jazz are on the road.

The last road trip of the season is a three game set in April that pits the Jazz against New Orleans, Dallas and finishes in San Antonio. April (like in the 2007-2008 season) is a brutal schedule and at the very least, all of these games are spaced by a day each. The San Antonio game is the first game in a back-to-back with the Jazz playing Golden State in the second game. This is one of the few back-to-backs where the second game is at home. (17 times out of the total 21 back-to-backs have the Jazz playing the 2nd game of the back-to-back on the road)

On the flip side, the Jazz only have three home stands longer than 2 games the entire season. (Trying to make it easier to play in SLC?) There's a home stand at the end of November that's 4 games long. Another in January that's 4 games long, and the last home stand this season is a 5 game stand in February (that also includes time away from SLC for the All-Star break).

The first is a sequence at home facing the Chicago Bulls, Memphis Grizzlies, the Sacramento Kings and finishing with the New Jersey Nets. The last two games comprise a back-to-back, with the last game (New Jersey) being a 3rd game in four nights.

The second home stand (January) involves the Jazz facing off against the Golden State Warriors, the New Orleans Hornets, the Detroit Pistons and finishing against the Indiana Pacers. This will be (probably) one of the best sequences for the Jazz as none of the games are back-to-backs. All of these teams are teams the Jazz should beat when playing in Utah.

The last home stand bookends the All-Star break in February. The last game for the Jazz before the break is against the Los Angeles Lakers. After the break the next four teams are the Memphis Grizzlies, the Boston Celtics, New Orleans Hornets and Atlanta Hawks. This is the longest home stand of the season, and it also features 4 games against playoff teams in five nights.

Overall the three long Eastern trips make the home/road disparity seem worse than it is, I wouldn't have minded a more home friendly last month though. (The Jazz only play 3 home games in all of April, but I guess it all evens out as the Jazz only play 3 times on the road in February)

Schedule Conflict:

Situation:	Total # of games	# of games played on the Road	# of games played vs. 2007-2008 Playoff teams	# of games played both on the road, and vs. 2007-2008 Playoff teams
2nd night of a back-to-back	21	17	11	11
3rd game in four nights	24	12	14	8
4th game in five nights	4	3	3	3

Yeah, 81% of the time the Jazz play the 2nd night of a back-to-back, the game is on the road, 53% either against a playoff team -- and each of those times on the road. Half the games played on the 3rd night in four nights is on the road, and more than half the time, that game is against a playoff team from last season. Lastly, 75% of the time the Jazz play a 4th game in five nights the game will either be: on the road, vs. a playoff team, or both. You know what that is?

Scruffy says: "Schedule Conflict."

It's not all bad:

Because the league insists on playing 82 games (split between 30 teams), not every team plays each of their conference opponents 4 times. This season the Jazz only play three games vs. the Lakers, Spurs, Hornets and Clippers. Sure, it would have been nice to switch out the Clippers game with a game again, say, Sacramento or Portland (two teams that both owned us last season) -- but two of the three games against the Clippers are at home, in Utah.

Contrastingly, two of the three games against the Lakers and Spurs will be on the road. This seems like it hands to series to both of these teams as the Jazz are more likely to win at home, and the games that were taken away (from the 4 game series) appear to be Jazz home games. The optimist in me looks at it like an opportunity to play one less game against a really good team -- and thus avoid a potential loss.

Lastly, the NBA is protecting Chris Paul by having him only face Deron Williams 3 times this season. Thankfully two out of the three games are at home. (The last game of the series is in New Orleans though, and will be a very interesting Game 77 for all to watch)

Oh yeah, I forgot, the Jazz have come out of nowhere to be on ESPN and TNT a grand total of 11 times (or some other ridiculously large number), which is the most I've ever seen in my life as a Jazz fan. (the last 19 of my years)

Top 5 Moves of the Summer (...so far...)

While the NBA has not been rocked by some four team, 16 player trade this off-season moves have been made which have changed the landscape of the league. October is just around the corner, 8 weeks away, and much can still happen. The market value for players has been relatively set by the offers and contracts signed by players like Elton Brand, Luol Deng, Baron Davis and so forth. There are a handful of interesting free agents left (Josh Smith, Andrei Iguodala, Ben Gordon, J.R. Smith and so forth), but with the NBA draft finished and most teams approaching luxury tax, the majority of moves will occur via trades. That said, what are some of the 5 top moves of the summer?

1. Elton Brand leaves the Clippers and goes to the Sixers: First of all, this basically destroyed the Clippers, they will continue to suck for a while. Getting Baron Davis is nice; it's nice that they traded for Camby and gave up nothing for him; and it's nice that they got Ricky Buckets . . . but Philly is just so much better right now with Andre Miller, Elton Brand, Samuel Dalembert and most likely Iggy. The Sixers have to be considered a top 6 team in the Eastern Conference right now. Brand will probably be an All-Star in the East this season as well. Great move for him, even if it splits up the really cool idea of him and Baron in Hollywood making movies together.
2. The European Evasion: NBA players are leaving the NBA to go play in Europe. When guys like Arvydas Sabonis or Sarunas Jasikevicius do it, no one really cares. When an American born kid like Josh Childress bolts everyone gets upset -- if for nothing else but the fact that Free Agents can now use real or imagined contract offers to use as leverage when negotiating contracts with NBA clubs. Other players who leave (or at least flirt with leaving) this off-season are Nenad Krstic, Sasha Vujacic, Primoz Brezec, Carlos Delfino, Jorge Garbajosa, Carl Landry, Jason Williams, Delonte West and others. Matt Moore postulates about a possible reaction by the NBA to this, methinks that this may come up in the next NBA Player's Association / NBA Team Owners meeting and a few tweaks of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) may occur. Let's not forget that plenty of NBA stars stole some money in Europe after their playing days in the NBA were done (like Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen and Dominique Wilkins . . . not to mention European guys like Sabonis or Vlade). Why can't mid-level NBA talent choose to go where the money is? They can, and apparently are!
3. Golden State and Chris Mullin over-react to losing Baron Davis: First of all, they enlist some help from the Department of Redundancy Department and end up signing another swingman in Corey Maggette (what happens to Steven Jackson?); then they throw bags and bags of money at Andris Biedrins; they steal Rony Turiaf from the LA Lakers and then make a small move for Marcus Williams. All of this is still < Baron Davis. I take great pleasure in seeing this team do poorly, and love how all of their bandwagoning fans will be quiet on the Internet again. (Note: Not all "Dubs" fans are bandwagoners, but a large vocal majority of them that were loud during the 2006-2007 Playoffs were, deal with it.) At least they'll always have that one Baron Davis dunk over Andrei Kirilenko to keep themselves warm . . . oh wait! He's not even theirs anymore, he belongs to Clippers fans now. Well, now the Warriors are screwed money wise, just like they were when they paid Troy Murphy and Adonal Foyle tons of money a few seasons ago.
4. T-Mac and Yao get a Tru Warrier: Easily the Rockets have been one of the worst playoff performing franchises that regularly get in the playoffs in recent memory. In the 11 years from the 1997-1998 season to this last one (2007-2008) they have been outed in the first round 6 times. They didn't make the playoff at all the other 5 times. While T-Mac gets a lot of the blame for this, I really thing the issue is Yao Ming's inability to be a big game player. Now they get some help by adding Ron Artest for the low low price of Bobby Jackson and some garbage. Artest is an expressive individual who probably can be the best player on this team on any given night. Houston is a lot more dangerous now. This is big news for a team that's had a top 4 record in the Western Conference the last two seasons. I also appreciate how he and Yao are having a verbal fight over the phone and Internet already. This is the omega trade for high risk/high reward.
5. Brooklyn New Jersey keeps making moves for LeBron in 2010: LeBron James is quite a catch. He would be the best player in this new NBA to be put in a large media market. Eventually the Nets franchise will move to Brooklyn, and the New York market is huge. LeBron becomes a free agent in 2010. Noted scandal rags have suggested that LeBron signing with the Nets really depends on who the Nets have on their team at that point. A quick look at their salary situation strongly points to a loss of swingmen on contract at the end of the 2009-2010 season, at the price of nearly $13 million dollars. Another issue to mull over for LeBron is the whole China market issue. Yi Jianlian is now a Net, and he's the only other guy in the NBA who is from China. The Milwaukee Bucks even focused part of their 2008 NBA Draft strategy on this point by drafting a guy who grew up in China and Taiwan and HK. Too bad for them, Yi is gone. LeBron could make a ton of cash if he was on the same team as Yi. He knows this. LeBron wants to be the richest man in the world -- if he wants to really be that guy, he's not going to do that in Cleveland. Let's not even bring up the whole Jay-Z thing . . .

Time will tell if these moves will improve their teams, or elicit other reactionary changes in the landscape (like the whole slew of trades that occurred in the Western Conference last season -- Kover, Kidd, Gasol, Shaq, etc). Regardless if they are good moves, they do make for a much changed landscape in the NBA. Philly is good again, Houston may finally make it out of the first round, Golden State is crap again and the Nets are making moves.