Five reasons why you should be on Twitter

1. Inside Access: If you ever wished you could be privy to unedited communication between your favorite players, this is it. Every day I get to read about Morris Almond and his rap lyric tweets; guys like Shaquille O’Neal and Charlie Bell making fun of Chris Bosh and Charlie Villanueva’s twitter followers contest; and insane, by the minute unedited, raw reactions from the NBA family to currently developing events. (Draft Night was much better because of Kevin Love and John Hollinger tweeting all night long) If you’re content to be dicked around by ESPN’s “In$ider” fee for access then you don’t need Twitter. If you want to go deeper (for free), there’s no better option right now.

2. Connections: Years ago it would be impossible for Mr.Joe Blow Fan to be in direct communications with the PR staff of their favorite team, National TV NBA analysts, well respected reporters, Bloggers, other Fans and the players themselves. Technology has afforded us this opportunity now. While you may wait half an hour to get on sports radio, or weeks for a written fan mail reply from a star today you get responses near instantly. I don’t ride around town in a horse drawn buggy, I drive a car that is itself not entirely reliant upon non-renewable fossil fuels. I move with the times, and my life is better for it. Twitter is a movement forward.

3. Speed: My cousin is a pretty big NBA fan, and he texted me yesterday about Gortat’s contract being matched by the Orlando Magic. That was breaking news for that day, for that afternoon. It was news that was a few hours old for me, though, because of my connection with the Twitterverse. How ridiculous is that? (over 30 hours ago was when I heard about it first) If you want the news as it happens, few things are faster than twitter right now. Right now when I started typing this everything was normal, now the Tweets are piling in about Boozer going on the radio in Chicago talking about a trade, and confirmations of Detroit local radio talking about a Boozer trade that’s going down. See how crazy this is? [Edit: Detroit radio tweets are speculative rumors]

4. Participation Optional: You don’t even have to tweet to benefit from Twitter – you just subscribe to a few random people that you know/like/wish to follow, and from there you slowly add more people that you read (from @(someone) messages) and before you know it you can sit at your desk at work pressing F5 and reading some crazy conversations. But it’s not even about that passive form of entertainment because of the . . .

5. People you meet: Really, using twitter has increased my productivity in networking with other NBA fans, bloggers, players, reporters and others exponentially. More so, I’m actually getting into non-homer discussions with fans of other teams as well. This off-season I’ve learned that I probably have more in common with the people I Tweet with than some of my own extended family members. While I used to previously view them as the enemy, I know have a personal affinity for New Orleans Hornets fans that just did not exist until Twitter. (Even the ones whose blogs I used to frequent and communicate with on other websites before, like Dimemag – they were still the enemy back then!) Now we occasionally share youtube videos of cats and talk about PC RPG user created mods. (You know who you are) How totally unexpected!

Bonus Reason: it doesn’t even have to be about sports at all . . . you can just use it to follow people you already know, or other celebrities . . . I know that I really enjoy Will Wheaton’s twitter updates, they are hilarious and usually involve some sort of The Simpsons reference. Also, Twitter is the destroyer of worlds.

Wooooo! One Year Old!

Happy Birthday AllThatJazz, you’ve been online clogging up the internets for one whole year now. Sure, you really fizzled down the stretch (like the Jazz), but you were really active in the off-season. Guess what? It’s the off-season again. Oh, the things you have seen in your first year of life . . .

• Fesenko had blond hair
• The Salt Lake City media couldn’t get enough of it
• Morris Almond was killing it in the summer league
• Deron got injured
• remember that game in Philly where no one was active to play, and we won?
• Boozer got injured
• eventually everyone got injured
• The team owner died
• Utah went from 1st in the division to 3rd
• we just squeaked into the playoffs and were unceremoniously ousted by the eventual champions, the Lakers
• somehow, over the course of the season, 5 new Jazz blogs came into being

And since then so many things have changed, this season the Jazz look to a new coach and general manager to right this ship, as Deron Williams will be looking to set up all new team mates in the quest for . . . wait what? REALLY? Okay, scratch that, the Jazz will go into this next season with, pretty much, the exact same team, coach and front office and expect better results. Memo, Boozer and Korver all opted into their final years of their contract. Two low draft picks were added, Millsap is a RFA and hopefully the Jazz are healthier next season.

So that much hasn’t changed from last year to this year . . . but let’s look at some blogging highlights from the past year! (and no, there are NOT all the blog posts I did all year long, jerks!)

• Why I decided to blog, and early concerns for saturation of Jazz blogs (July 14th, 2008)
• Explaining how awesome Stockton was/is. (July 15th, 2008 a; b; April 20th, 2009)
• Deron Williams signing for the long haul (July 19, 2008)
• The Brevin Knight/Jason Hart trade (July 23, 2008)
• Not-so-Jazzy Nicknames (Part 1: August 4th, 2008; Part 2: November 12th, 2008; Part 3: December 1st, 2009)
• The Making Guard (August 21st, 2008); On a wing and a prayer (April 11th, 2009)
• The NBA's next target: India. Why India? Why not? (August 27th, 2008)
• 10 Things other Point Guards do better than Deron Williams, and why. (August 28th, 2008)
• What if: The USSR played at the Olympics? (September 2nd, 2008)
• Adrian Dantley -- better late than never (September 7th, 2008)
• Hoops-pedia: Game of Destiny (September 9th, 2008)
• The Five Epic Errors of Jerry Eugene Sloan (September 11th, 2008); The Five Epic Qualities of Jerry Eugene Sloan (October 17th, 2008)
• Tangent Alert: sports figures ARE public figures (September 22nd, 2008)
• Mehmet Okur Evolution . . . (October 1st, 2008)
• YouTube Tuesdays! Mehmet Okur Interview Drinking Game (October 15th ,2008)
• Flashback Friday: Andrei back when he was AK-47 (October 24th, 2008)
• YouTube Tuesdays! We're Number Three! (October 28th, 2008)
• Utah Jazz 2008-2009 Season Preview! (October 29th, 2008)
• Flashback Friday- Some other young Jazz players that got better after their rookie seasons or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the Long Bomb (from Morris Almond) (October 31st, 2008)
• YouTube Tuesdays! Millsap owns Kaman (November 4th, 2008)
• Where in the world is Tadija Dragicevic and Ante Tomic? (November 6th, 2008)
• 10 Things Jazz fans should be thankful for (November 27th, 2008)
• Game 6 Recap- New York 107 - Utah 99 (December 13th, 2008) <---- super late game recap
• The King is dead. Love live the King! (February 21st, 2009)
• Walking Wounded (February 21st, 2009)
• To be honest with you Diane, I'm surprised (February 21st, 2009)
• Requisite Oscars/NBA cross over post (February 23rd, 2009)
• The Jedi Voodoo Mind Trick Hype Machine (February 25th, 2009)
• ESPN, and the fans who love to hate them (February 26th, 2009) <--- a must read
• Flashback Friday- WE'RE GOING STREAKING! (March 6th, 2009)
• Contract years, Developing Talent & Front Office Subterfuge (March 6th, 2009)
• Carlos Boozer to English Dictionary -- Episode 1 (March 9th, 2009)
• Rational Jazz Blogger Roundtable 1- Playoffs, Player evaluations & Jazz fan reputations (March 10th, 2009)
• How bad are the Jazz on the road, really- (March 25th, 2009)
• . . . Of Mice and Millsap (March 26th, 2009)
• 2008-2009 Regular Season- What the heck happened- (April 11th, 2009)
• Home (aka SLC) is where the wins are (April 11th, 2009)
• Finishing weak (April 12th, 2009)
• Searching for that PPF- Perfect Power Forward (April 13th, 2009)
• You have got to be kidding me – Jeff Hornacek Mix!!! (April 20th, 2009)
• Round 1, Game 3 Postmortem- Luck (April 24th, 2009) <—Luck off, Lakers fans
• Utah Jazz 2008-2009 Season in Review (Part 1)- The Season that was (May 17th, 2009)
• Who else is sick with the Great Hype surrounding Andrew “Bust”num- (May 18th, 2009)

Hopefully this next season is better for the Jazz *and* All That Jazz (and no, I don’t mean the section of the Utah Jazz Official Website that stole my name, and is featured at the bottom of their page, seriously, that’s a total rip off job) as well. I learned a lot in this last year, and hope to use it by continuing to blog! (Be it here, or elsewhere in some other place)

ESPN, and the fans who love to hate them

Okay, let's get something straight right off the bat -- ESPN (the self-proclaimed world wide leader in sports) doesn't like small market teams, and fans of those teams don't like ESPN. Why? Well, you're more likely to hear a story about Kobe, LeBron, the Yankees or the Dallas Cowboys twice before you even hear them mention the final score of the game your favorite team played last night in. There's really more money to make by appeasing the larger markets than they would get by (and I'm dating myself here), talking about an exciting 11 inning game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Montreal Expos. No one cares about that, we need to hear about the color and abnormal nitrogen content of Jeter's piss.

Thankfully, we have the Internet -- and no longer need big sports shows to tell us who won or who lost. Unfortunately, the liberation we (the multitude of fans who love teams that the big networks hate) should feel fails to exist in reality. As big as the Internet is, it's not immune to corporate domination. Take me for example, I've sworn off watching Sportcenter because of their decision (which is a logical financial move on their part) to shun giving major coverage to obscure, esoteric teams. I don't need to watch them spin a Jazz win into the other team losing the game, and then make excuse for that team --  okay, so the Lakers were tired, but the Jazz were playing without Carlos Boozer, Andrei Kirilenko and Brevin Knight -- obvious advantage to the Jazz there! Yet, my browser homepage (over the course of over a decade, and several computers) continues to be the ESPN.com NBA homepage.

Why do I even go there? It's more a self preservation based strategy really, as ESPN.com is a lot more user friendly than the labyrinthine navigation needed in order to actually get what you want out of the Official NBA Website. With a few clicks I can view, sort and analyze all the data from last nights games, or the last 5 years worth. The fact is that while they do a poor job of sharing the spotlight on the air, ESPN.com could be really great for the fans of all teams. Yet, they do an equally poor job over "the Internets".

Their website is a storehouse of just the information any fan needs in order to construct their own opinions, less the media biases that we all accuse them of having. [Just look at the comments section of any article that says something . . . ESPN then becomes a pro-Lakers, anti-Lakers, pro-Kobe, anti-Kobe, pro-LeBron, anti-LeBron, pro-Celtics, anti-whatever propaganda machine -- according to us, the unwashed masses of sports fans.] Aside from any perceived real (or imagined) biases fans see, some of their "experts" aren't "expert" enough. But that's not even the worst part of ESPN.com's Internet presence.

The worst part is that we fans -- who love ESPN or hate them -- flock to their webpage like sheep, and build their reporting and analysis up so much (in our own minds, perceiving that their statements carry a greater weight of authority over other statements over the 'net) as the antecedent to getting upset about those very same reports and analysis. In effect, we champion them with one action, only to vilify them with another. No one would care if someone with no more a sports authority than you said something bad (or even worse, didn't say anything at all!) about your team. Our threat assessment alarm only goes off when it comes from people who 'are paid to know their stuff'.

I don't get upset if Charlie Rosen writes something inherently flawed. I don't go into "monkey crapping into his hand, only so he has something to throw" mode when someone at work thinks differently about the Lions draft strategy than I do. Thus, logically, I should not care about what is posted at ESPN.com . . . nor should anyone. Yet, hundreds of people everyday go into monkey poop mode (albeit with their keyboards, not their actual poop) on any opinion piece they put up. Sports fans, as passionate, emotional people with feverent loyalty, cannot really be asked to be sterile robots -- especially not when 'those d-bags over at ESPN are totally hatin' on ______ (your favorite team here), ______ (author of article uploaded onto ESPN.com) is such a d-bag!!!'

Let's just look at one of the most hotly contested regular features: Marc Stein's Weekly NBA Power Rankings. Back in the day when Stein only used to write the occasional opinion piece on the ESPN.com website I did not go crazy. He appeared to favor some teams over others and while I did not agree with all of his opinions, he did bring something to the table as a sports writer. That was then. Today he is like a God, and his weekly pronouncements cause reverence and hysteria amongst all his believers.

[EPIC TANGENT ALERT!!!] Can you imagine if this was actually the case -- if God had His own Power Rankings each week? The posts we'd see on message boards would be insane:

• Christians knock off Jews as God's people this week! Numbah 1 babeey!!11! [Xx_LaMb_Of_GoD_xX]
• Moses is injured, we're not worried [FeartheZohan]
• Whatev, Jesus was nailed to a cross, k thnx bai [CanIhasSalvationplz?]
• Wicca beats Voodoo, Rasta an Shinto on road, and goes down 2 spots? Hata!!! [WynndrWymyn]
• Wiccans underrated! [Magic Circle Sister]
• Wicca hasn't even made the playoffs since the dark ages, ur aal dumb [Stan666]
• Ay, whaut be dis ting ye sayin, bway? Wicca bee lucky dis week, 'seen? [RudeBoy420]
• ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz [Cth007h00]
• My head asplode [EmilyG]
• Atheism always last each week? WTF? [NoGod1999]
• Hey, why doesn't anyone respond? [NoGod1999]
• Hello? [NoGod1999]
• Anyone? [NoGod1999]
• .....god? [NoGod1999]
• God's rankings sux! Stupid Middle East Coast Bias, boo! [Dr.Zeus]
• Dharmic faiths more fulfilling than Abrahamic? [LittleBuddah5]
• In this life, or the next? [I_am_Ganesh!!!]
• +1 [Quetzoquatl4MVP]
• +1 [Quetzoquatl4MVP]
• Stopid servers, sry for dbl post [Quetzoquatl4MVP]
• +1 [Quetzoquatl4MVP]
• lolz, u mean trippple post [ODiN>>>L0Ki]
• heh heh heh [Quetzoquatl4MVP]
• whatever, it's all rigged [Xenuluvr88]
• Shuttup elroy [72Virgins4me]
• Fine, believe what you believe, let me believe what I do [Xenuluvr88]
• Hey you *&%$#@! [TeeCruise] -- post pending deletion
• post deleted by administrator
• That's it! I am going to sue you in England! [TeeCruise] -- post pending deletion

[/EPIC TANGENT ALERT]

Such is the outcry every week when Stein submits his Power Rankings -- and it's slightly less funny to read what people write. And while Stein isn't God, the waves made by his weekly Power Rankings cause ripples all over the Internet. Sports Illustrated (a corporate RIVAL of ESPN) has a forum on their servers, yet on that server people who talk sports have message board throwdowns about Stein's rankings. SI has their own power poll, by the way, but the fans of SI are talking about ESPN's rankings . . . on SI's message board. Even The Onion, probably the most consistently funny (and honest) satirical view of our modern society, mentioned Stein's Power Rankings a while back. Would we care if Stein's rankings did not come from the self-styled "World Wide Leader", and thus, were bereft of this absolute authoritarian weight? Most likely no, because you don't see people go Apeshit "monkey poop mode" over the weekly rankings over at BallDon'tLie, or RealGM . . . well, they do, but not to the same level.

Ultimately, it is the fact that they style themselves as the WWL that draws us to them. Some agree, some disagree . . . and random people dedicate time to discussing them (good things and bad things), validating those people who feel like no press is bad press. I'm a sports fan. I hate ESPN. I really do love to hate them, and I feel justified in doing so as a fanatic of a small market sports team . . . but does it even matter to the execs over at ESPN? If they surfed their way over here they'd see "ESPN", "ESPN.com" and the word "love" about a dozen times and give each other raises, never really stopping to read it.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go check out their webpage to see if anything new is up . . . for me to go all Angry Dad over.

THAT'S OPINION!!! NOT NEWS!!!

Just like the 'new coke' and 'coca-cola classic'

Okay, less people in my reading base actually have widescreen monitors than I though. I'm going back to posting the main body text into a format that is readable by all -- but I'm not going to change the right side bar thingy. The right side bar thingy was just too much HTML work to put in for someone who was never taught HTML; thus, reverting to what I had before invalidates that one book I bought on HTML. (And the hours I put into that code) This way both groups of people have something to complain about now, instead of just one. For widescreen users you're going to just get used to a lot of trapped white space. For normal computer monitor users, that right side bar thingy is forever going to look jacked up. Basically, all my widescreen revisions of the blog will go down in history as the "new coke era" of my blog. Great. That means that people should like my blog more now that I've put it back to normal again, ha ha . . .

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.

Sometimes Change is good, other times . . .

. . . other times it can be bad. [of if you have been following the NBA Trade Deadline deals, sometimes change can be just for the sake of change, neither good nor bad!] Hopefully the changes in this Blog are for the better. Similarly, tonight is the first day in the rest of the life of the Utah Jazz. Seemingly fitting, it has gotten me off of my butt and elicited posting again. I really do enjoy blogging, and over the last few months I have missed it. Unfortunately things in life require more attention to others -- in the long list of things I am involved in, blogging daily was easy to give up. (Especially because there are so many great Jazz blogs out there!!!)

I've made some changes here, the first one is that I'm not formatting my post posts to be viewed optimally in a native widescreen format. Last year I was still clinging to my teachings of doing things in a newspaper format (including the thin little columns of text, and so forth). This is a new year and a new age. Widescreen seems to be the wave of the future -- and really, if I'm finally using it, then most of the world would have already adapted to this. Surely this sucks for the loyal fans of my blog (I know you are out there, I check out your IP addresses!) who do not view the blog on a widescreen screen. [You know, the people kicking around on windows 98 era computers and/or reading this at work]

Going widescreen has allowed for me to put seemingly more information in the side bar (which was becoming quite cluttered otherwise). I'm sure that this looks horrible in the regular 4:3 screen ratio (I know, I pivoted my widescreen 90 degrees -- like it used to be -- and took a look for myself, it's nasty); but it's just something I'm going to have to live with. Just like we're going to have to live with situations we wouldn't prefer, but have to none-the-less.

I'm also not going to try to post as frequently as before. I was having fun doing that, and had moved into the Top 100 NBA blog rankings @ BallHype.com; but the other big Jazz blogs do that so well already. I don't need to put out a game preview and recap for every game when what I wanted to say has already been said. Kind of like how no soft drink can really complete with the Coke and Pepsi brands, I'm going to once again get back to my roots by posting stuff distinct enough that it warrants reading outside of current Jazz news. I'm going to try to keep up with the YouTube Tuesdays and other regular features though . . . so hold on tight. This is the 2nd half of the NBA season, and I guess, the 2nd half of the blogging season too! Btw, the Blog does look a whole lot better in Widescreen . . . take my word for it!

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! We're Number Three!

LABallTalk's top team blog contest is over, and surprisingly . . . AllThatJazz is #3. I'm very surprised, especially since I voted only once, and that was for TrueBlueJazz, too funny. Thanks to LaBallTalk for doing this, and validating my insomnia. (It was either blogging or picking up the Tuba, and my neighbors probably would not have enjoyed that night time activity) And thanks to all the people who voted for mine, and all the other Jazz blogs!

Super Mario Bros. - Solo Tuba [1:36] -- uploaded by tubadylan

Ball Don't Lie's Jazz Season Preview is up...

J.E. Skeets (and KD) do it again here . . . great stuff. My only wish is that next season I get MY season preview up in time and that the good bloggers over there find something witty in my wall of text to quote.

If you like that be sure to read the other great Jazz blog's season previews as well (while I'm getting mine finished):

• SLC Dunk's preview is pretty thorough
• The Utah Jazz' preview has a lot of words in it, just the way I like 'em!
• Last, but not least, True Blue Jazz kinda has something up, it's entertaining as usual.

My Blog looks funny in wide screen

There's a lot of trapped white space (well, light blue space here) in my blog posts when viewed in a wide screen format. I don't care enough to fix it. I have a funny set up with my current home computing systems where I extend my desktop over two screens. One screen (the primary where I view webpages) is at 1050 x 1680 (a regular HD capable screen rotated 90 degrees so that it's tall, and not long). The other screen is wide screen in the regular horizontally aligned rectangle (1200 x 800). This second screen is where I type up my blog entries. Here is an image to show you the 'logical' way to set up two wide screen screens . . . and the bottom two screens depict how I've set my system up.

Yes, I even felt it necessary to put up this image explaining things a bit more. Here it is, the top two "displays" would be a normal very wide screen deal. The bottom two is what I have. The "A" is the primary display device, and "B" is the secondary device. As you can see, my set up is basically an upside down "L" shape. Why is this important?

Why is this important you ask? Well, because it explains why my blog looks funny in wide screen (got me there, SLC Dunk!). Why do I have my screens set up like this? I happen to have to read a lot of pdf files (that are things like scanned journal pages or whatever), or view things roughly x-ray shaped, or read blogs a lot. It's just easier to read something aligned like a page (11" by 8.5") than to have to keep scrolling endlessly.

My Blog looks fine on my set-up, at the expense of looking strange on other computers. Whatever . . .

LA Ball Talk's Top Team Blog Contest

If you didn't know, LA Ball Talk is hosting a Top Team Blog Contest right now. Basically -- from my understanding -- it's a "there can only be one" / Highlander style vote where each of the 30 teams will end up with ONE blog that stands above all. Actually, here's the text from the top of the page that explains it a whole lot better: The following are the sites that are trying their hand at being named the Top Blog for the team that they cover on a daily basis. Passion, pride, commitment and knowledge of the game are key to a successful sports blog, and every one of these blogs has these characteristics. Take a look into each of these sites and admire how much work everyone puts into their blogs. Leave these bloggers some comments and help them grow their site in order to bring you the best that they possibly can. The voting polls will be up and running tomorrow, most likely, and will give all the fans a chance to vote for their favorite blog for each NBA team.  (LA Ball Talk, 2008, from their own blog)

Anyway, some teams have more participating blogs than others:

• The LA Lakers have 7 blogs (!)
• The LA Clippers have 2 (even more amusing than the 7 Lakers blogs)
• I'm pretty sure the 5 Utah Jazz blogs could take the Houston blogs out in the 1st round, then cream the Golden State blogs in the 2nd. (sorry, 2006-2007 playoffs flashback) Nah, both fanbases have really strong followings and entertaining blogs (specifically the Dream Shake and Golden State of Mind)
• The Charlotte New Orleans Hornets have a whopping 8 blogs, one for every non-bandwagon Hornets fan in human history
• Some blogs have no other competition, like Indy Corn Rows's dominion over all things Pacers related
• The New York Knicks have 6 blogs, one for every "point guard" on their roster

Anyway, there are more than 5 Utah Jazz blogs, so I am honored to be selected/nominated or whatever. Alas, I'm one of the newest ones, and I do not have a large following. This hurts me in this competition, as well as the fact that I don't blog everyday. I'm not going to be able to 'out scoop' the other Jazz blogs when it comes to news either. And that's fine. Those blogs are really good for what they do, so I've had to carve out a niche doing something else -- like writing posts with very large word counts.

I don't even look at this as a competition at all, just a chance to get more inter-team blog flow, and to present the Jazz blogging unit (all of us, not just any one particular blog) as the best NBA Team Blogging fans there are!

Seriously? Our Top 5 blogs are better than any other Top 5 team blogs out there.

1.  SLC Dunk is solid and dependable -- it starts things off, and is there to finish the game when things are tight like Deron Williams. Everyone likes SLC Dunk.
2. True Blue Jazz, formerly My Utah Jazz, is slightly unpredictable, often controversial, but puts up big numbers and has won the notice of these online blog wars before . . . like how Carlos Boozer is a beast that has been recognized as an All-Star more than once.
3. The Cowhide Globe is not a blog name that rolls off the tongue for some people who are not familiar with our team, but is capable of posting clutch articles that make a big difference, like Mehmet Okur
4. UtahJazzBlog.net has long been in the game (2006! wow!), though has not been keeping up with the rest of the starting five of late. Some may argue that The Utah Jazz should be in this starting five even! In this case, UtahJazzBlog.net appears to be the Derek Fisher to The Utah Jazz' Ronnie Brewer (circa 2006-2007).
5. Last we have All That Jazz, a versatile blog that doesn't get many touches (hits), and wants to play with a spark (write well) but is riddled with translation problems (occasional type-o's) and xenophobia (a Jazz blog written by a Canadian guy living in Detroit). Yes, this is the AK-47 of blogs as I do a little bit of everything, occasionally do something awesome, but over-all am a shadow of my former self. (Back in the early 2000's before Blogs I was really active in writing basketball posts on message boards)

Ball Don't Lie respects Ronnie Brewer

Ball Don't Lie, via You Got Dunked on, posts a good video of Brewer dunking on the Lakers. While the video does not feature Ronnie's alley oop, it's a pretty good sequence of high flying jams. Furthermore, Skeets brings to light the fact that Brewer "had more dunks than LeBron James last year." (J.E. Skeets, 2008) Good stuff! Because the internet is free . . . here's the video!

click here for the original . . .

No new posts since Oct 5th, 2008

Yeah, I haven't posted anything since then, but well, what can I say, things have been busy at work, and I haven't really *made* the time to blog. The time to blog exists, but I was rather distracted . . . you know . . . some things are more fun than spending hours in front of a computer screen. Hopefully I will make more time with the season almost here -- though I seriously doubt I'm going to be able to compete with the more 'newsy' related Jazz blogs that promptly blog about and discuss each and every game. (like SLC Dunk and True Blue do)

In the meantime, here is a funny picture of Dee Brown and Deron Williams back when they were in college.

Their place was a lot cleaner than my place was back in undergrad

News Headlines - The calm before the storm

Can you believe that it's almost October? Really? We're less than half a month away and more and more NBA news will be coming in the near future. [point of reference: us bloggers have lamented how boring the Month of August was, imagine how bereft of information it will be in those non-Olympic years!] Anyway, here is a quick rundown of some Jazz related stories:

* The Dominator is ubiquitous -- Deron Williams is "The Man" of this team, and lives in SLC full time, and as a result, he's been busy there full time giving back to the community, read about in the Desert Morning News! "When Williams first appeared in Utah, he was confident but guarded. Charles Barkley he wasn't. But as time passed, he became increasingly willing to show his humor. Sometimes it's simply a glint in his eye or a short one-liner. For those he trusts, he's engaging and cooperative, the proverbial good guy. Which raises the obvious question: What's in it for him? Is this some kind of radical publicity blitz? Probably not, since he had already signed his contract extension before most of this happened. "We didn't just sit down and say, 'Deron, we've got to come up with a major media crash course,' like we're promoting a movie," said Wright. "It's not like that. People were calling and saying, 'Can you go here?' And a lot of it, if it fit into his schedule, we did." Wright says Williams also did it because he understands he's the Jazz's guy. His team, his town, his responsibility. Which is quite unusual. The team has three players who have been All-Stars (Boozer, Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur), yet the most popular, and the unchallenged leader, is Williams." (Brad Rock, 2008, Deseret News)

 

* Steve Luhm (of the Salt Lake Tribune) talks about the 2010 Draft pick that we own, and how the improvement of the New York Knicks may reduce what looked like a for sure lock at a Top 5 pick in that draft. "The Knicks weren't going anywhere under Isiah Thomas and the Jazz's chances of being in the top five or top 10 of the 2010 draft with the pick previously acquired from New York would have improved had he stayed in charge. The hiring of Donnie Walsh as team president and Mike D'Antoni as coach is first step toward respectability for the Knicks, which is not good news for the Jazz. Walsh's track record and reputation are impeccable. He's one of the best in the business and was the perfect choice to direct the reconstruction in New York. D'Antoni? I've known him since he was hired as Denver's director of player personnel in 1997. During the lockout-shortened 1999 season, D'Antoni inherited the impossible job of head coach and guided the Nuggets to a 14-36 record. He was not retained, but got a second chance to be an NBA head coach in Phoenix, starting early in the 2003-04 season. Everybody who follows the NBA knows what kind of job D'Antoni did with the Suns." (Luhm, 2008, Salt Lake Tribune)

 

* AK back to Russia, for reals this time, people! -- People love to jump to unreasonable conclusions, as a story grows exponentially with each blog that links to it, and gives their take -- I read this blog post from "The Hoop" from a variety of sources (ballhype and dimemag) today, and Dime even goes the distance to suggest that solving the financial burden in Utah is as easy as shipping AK off to CSKA Moscow (reading jazzfanz much?)-- because of their "reported" interest in him. Didn't they have 'reported' interest in Ben Gordon too? How did that work out? The Hoop reports from somewhere else (krepsinis.net?) that this can be a done deal, and that it may have some weight because Andrei hasn't renewed his contract with the Utah Jazz yet. First of all, it's good to check your sources.

There are a few places on the net that show these financial facts quite easily . . . Andrei is under contract for three more seasons @ $15 million, $16.5 million and $17.8 million. So not only is AK not able to renew his contract (as it's not expiring), but this means that CSKA would have to buy out his contract from the Jazz (much like how when NBA teams have to buy out contracts from big dogs across the pond, it works both ways guys). This guy (Anthony) said it best:

"I mean, CSKA's got money, but I don't know if they have 3 years/50 mil of buyout money to go along with a similar sized contract. His wife has a shop in Salt Lake, he's good friends with the other Eastern European dudes on the team, and he has one of the best point guards in the league (and if Boozer bolts he'd become his preferred target). Something tells me that this won't happen.

Scratch that, everything tells me that this won't happen."  (comment from The Hoop article, 2008)

 

* Training camp Tid-bits -- It basically starts on September 29th with media day (yes, we'll get to find out what hair color Fesenko currently has, or if Kover finally got that 'Thugg Life' tattoo he kept suggesting that he'd get over the summer), then they're off to Boise from September 30th to October 3rd. (Mark your calendar, Masha!)

When this happens each year I think of Jerry Sloan telling all the players that for that point in time that he's going to be their daddies, and that he forces integration by having unlikely pals to room mate together -- like, a few seasons ago we may have had Greg Ostertag sharing a room with DeShawn Stevenson. Okay, sure, my entire concept of Jazz training camp is like that sequence from "Remember the Titans".

Just fast-forward to the 3:30 mark if you don't want to watch all of this, the best part (the part I'm talking about) starts at 6:30 . . .anyway . . . the first pre-season game is against the Lakers on October 7th in Anaheim. Woo!

 

* Trickle down economics means that during an energy crisis air travel is more expensive . . . duh. Thanks for showing up Jasen Lee.

Flashback Friday: Remembering Duckworth

 

This last week we lost another large part of my youth as a basketball fan to the passage of time. On Monday Kevin Duckworth passed due to complications of congestive heart failure. How old was he? Rather, how young was he? He died at the age of 44 -- which we all can agree, is just too soon to go. Many bloggers have already discussed the event, their reactions to it, along with their memories of Duck. Now I throw my hat in the ring as well.

Kevin Duckworth Tribute [3:54] The best picture is the one with the deer. Such a gentle man, sad to see him taken from us so soon.

As a die hard Utah Jazz fan there are several franchises out there they I find it very hard to root for / feel sorry for when bad things happen to them. The first one would have to be the Los Angeles Lakers -- as they have (so far) book ended my career as a Jazz fan with 2nd round defeats (first a 7 Game series back in 1987-1988 and most recently in 2007-2008). The second team would have to be the Chicago Bulls -- as they defeated Utah in the finals twice -- partly due to some dubious calls (Game 6 of the Finals in '98 for example). The last one would be the Portland Trailblazers (though the Denver Nuggets and Charlotte New Orleans Hornets are getting up there). [Additionally the San Antonio Spurs have earned their own personal layer of hell in my heart, and don't fit into this equation.]

I still vividly remember the Jazz getting eaten up by Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Buck Williams and crew back in the 1990-1991 season, and how the Jazz lost in the West Finals to that Portland team (a team that featured Kevin Duckworth) again the next season in 1991-1992. Then Portland took the Jazz out a few seasons later in 1998-1999 -- and ended Jeff Hornacek's career in the 2nd round.

That said, losing Kevin Duckworth cannot make anyone, save for the greatest Portland hater happy.

I watched him play for many seasons and he just looked, moved and acted differently than other members of the Jailblazers Franchise. He was a starter on some very good teams and while he never averaged a double double in his career (that was over a decade long), he was an All-Star twice. He did average over 20 and 10 in the playoffs one season (1987-1988) though. As the Blazers continued to get better, and gather better talent, he appeared to be the weak link in their starting lineup. (Terry Porter, Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams and Duck) Eventually he became a pariah and was not always loved by the fans (which conflicts with the revised story that they apparently always loved him, which came out after he died). I seemed like a really nice, Type B personality guy who for whatever reason, ended up playing basketball as well as he could -- but that was hardly good enough for some people. In that regard he reminds me of how fans, coaches and players treated Greg Ostertag. He was doing his best, but giving your all wasn't good enough sometimes.

One great moment in time that I look back at happened on some TV game back in the early 90's. The Blazers were well on their way to winning the game. Their coach (Rick Adleman) was taking out the starters in slow waves and the home crowd gave each a healthy applause. The TV crew working the game (including Bill Walton and Steve Snapper Jones) concluded that he was leaving Duckworth for last because he had been playing spectacularly well -- and deserved the positive ego boost of hearing the crowd cheering him for his good work. It was a grand gesture that would have made Duckworth happy -- and even though I hated the Blazers, the thought of him -- the underdog -- getting his day in the sun, made me happy.

Unfortunately there would be no happy ending, as after all the starters (save Duckworth) were on the bench and the celebrations started Adleman called a time-out, and Duckworth was substituted out in this manner -- he never got a chance to hear his name called over the arena PA system, he never got his applause, he never got the love that he deserved. And that really sucks.

The only other great Duckworth memory that I have was back when my brother and I would play video games together. We happened to be playing NBA Live '95 on the computer. He was using the keyboard, and I was playing with the mouse (which you can imagine was very hard to do). We were the Washington Bullets and playing against a much better team. It was a close game and many people had fouled out. I controlled Kevin Duckworth with the mouse, and as time was ticking down was able to push the computer's ball handler out of bounds (without a foul being called), thus giving us a final chance to win the game. (Which we did with a Rex Chapman buzzer beating three)

Anyway, Duckworth had career averages of 11.8 ppg (46.8 fg%, 73.6 ft%) and 5.8 rpg. His best seasons were between 1987-1988 and 1990-1991 where he scored at least 16 ppg every year and played around 30 mpg. He was an important cog in several NBA Final's teams, and did a great deal for the community after his death. I am sad to see him go. Why couldn't God have taken Bonzi Wells instead? R.I.P. Kevin Duckworth.

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.