Dear Blog reader

Thank you for your support over all these months, all of you, even the people who come here looking for e-mail addresses to use in Nigerian Spam Scams, the 83 people who do not yet have closure on Blue Edward’s paternity case, and of course, the people who are redirected here when searching the ‘net to see if Jeff Hornacek made any all-NBA defense teams. (Btw, the answer is no) I’ve tried to be fair, and write interesting posts for everyone to enjoy. Some deal with stats, others with looking back upon NBA records, or old players or whatever. That said, even when you try you just can’t support 100% of the readership 100% of the time.

So, to the 5 people who visit my blog under 640x480 resolution and the 11 people who visit my blog under 800x600 resolution, I’m really sorry. My blog will not be able to support your continued readership at this point in time. I can only hope that in the year of our Obama-lord 2009 that the only way you are visiting my site (let alone any other) under those pre-millennial resolutions would be if your computer happens to be running in safe mode. I’m flattered, I really am, but if you are in Safe mode, please try to get your computer fixed. The basketball commentary can wait for another time.

If those are the best resolutions your computer can do, it may be time to spend the $500 bucks to buy a new minimum spec desktop that’ll at least take you to 1024x768 and 1 gig of RAM.

And yes, the vast majority of the random / non-repeat reader of my blog comes here to find out more info on Blue Edwards/Kimberly Van de Perre. (That and pictures of CeCe Boozer)

Thank you,

and now we will resume our regularly unscheduled blogging.

ESPN's Chad Ford likes him some Utah Jazz

In a recent ESPN Podcast (click on that if you want to listen to it) Ford talks for about 2 minutes about how gosh darn awesome the Jazz are. He starts by suggesting (what a lot of people thought, including himself) that the Jazz success in the 80's and 90's were primarily due to John Stockton and Karl Malone; however, he now sees that the influence of the system and Jerry Sloan had a lot to do with it. Case in point: this version of the Jazz who are pretty strong -- partly due to the system, and partly because of shrewd roster moves by GM Kevin O'Connor.

Furthermore, success in the Jazz system is predicated upon strong point guard play -- and none of this recent success would be possible without Deron Williams. Who Ford "thinks is one of the top 3 point guards in the NBA" (Chad Ford, 2008, via ESPN Podcast). He goes on about how dominant he is.

Next Ford talks about Boozer being an anchor in the paint; mentions AK-47 as a talented role player whose true contributions do not always show up on the box score; and that Mehmet Okur stretches the defense and had an amazing second half of the season for us. Surprisingly he gets himself a good seat on the Ronnie Brewer bandwagon and talks about his athleticism, his ability to play the passing lanes, he's potentially a ball hawk, and really is what the Jazz team are missing. Basically he's suggesting that he's going to be that athletic perimeter defender that we haven't had since, well, uh, Blue Edwards? (Jazz history isn't rife with great athletic shooting guard lore) Over-all the Utah Jazz's depth, head coach and system are hard to ignore. Such that:

	"I think that if anybody is going to be able to stop the Lakers this year it's the Utah Jazz -- they're great at home, they are getting [increasingly] confident, they have a great mixture of youth and veterans, and I think at the end of the day, if there's a team that is going to surprise us in the West, it's going to be the Utah Jazz." (Chad Ford, 2008, via ESPN Podcast)
Chad Ford, ESPN

I haven't heard any of his other team podcasts, but I doubt he's going to be really critical (well, maybe the Pacers and Bobcats...) in any of them. If you want, you can listen to them all here. Over all, I agree with him -- our bench is under rated, our system works, and we have some athletic young talent for once. NBA Finals here we come!

Things to look for this season: Ronnie Brewer

For those who don't know, Ronnie Brewer is the son of former NBA Player Ron Brewer (Sr.); and currently is the starting shooting guard for the Utah Jazz. Ronnie is a special type of player who was touted in college to be able to play the 1, 2 and 3 on the pro level. So far -- in my obviously unprofessional assessment -- he's basically an NBA three with limited range. Or at least, that's what he has so far shown as a member of the Jazz. Now, before you all accuse me of suggesting that Brewer is nothing more (or less) than an athletic, young dunker in the mold of David Benoit or Blue Edwards let me finish.

The Heir	The Air	The flair

In the Jazz system he is a finisher on offense who is not called upon to really do to much playmaking (unlike Jeff Hornacek who got his fair share of assists playing the 2 in Utah), and his outside shot is decidedly 'shaky' right now. Ronnie does have three point range, but let's be honest, the other team would rather leave him open at the three point line than suffer a worse fate by allowing Deron to drive into the lane, or leaving Memo open from three.

He is very young and athletic and still learning the NBA game. Right now in the Jazz system he can be masked and be plugged into the shooting guard role; though I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't mind having a bit more distance shooting to compliment Brewer's flat out insane FG% -- last season it was only 55.8%. There are two reasons why his FG% is so high: he doesn't trouble himself with jacking shots out of his comfort zone and he makes the shots that he takes; and secondly, he doesn't shoot it from that far (59 total career three point shots attempted). Really, this is because he has a career three point shooting % of a sub-Harpringian 18.6%.

As far as starting shooting guards go, that's not that great. (Which is probably why I call his play so far in his career as that of a Small Forward in that Josh Howard mold . . . a slasher who is great around the basket and need to work to keep defenses honest from the outside) I'd love for him to become a 30% shooter from downtown, but I do not anticipate that from happening. He's never going to be a bomber from deep like Kyle Korver is. On the flip side, Kover is never going to go out and dunk on people, or you know, challenge shots.

Josh Howard is what some draft sites appraised Brewer to be like as a pro.	Korver is a great shooter,	though he's not great at everything that the Jazz need.

What are the three key things that we have to look out for this season from Ronnie Brewer?

1. More consistent Outside shot: It really is the 3,000 lb. mastodon in the room . . . in order for Ronnie to really earn more playing time in the fourth quarter he has to be able to maintain the good floor spacing that the Jazz need on offense. Right now Jerry Sloan finishes with Deron, Carlos, Andrei and Memo because they all are pretty diverse -- and he adds in Kyle Korver, who is a dead eye shooter from the line and from three. Brewer is a much better defender than Korver, but the current relative difference between Kyle and Ronnie's defense is smaller than the large gap between their relative offensive abilities. (55.8 fg% notwithstanding) That percentage is highly elevated due to where he gets those shots from -- shots that fail to exist in the 4th quarter for shooting guards.
2. Has to do more on offense than just dunk the ball: Essentially, for Brewer to get more than his 24 - 27 mpg he is going to have to bring a bit more variety on offense. So far his ball handling has been under-whelming. He was supposed to be a 1/2/3 coming out of college, yet I've only seen him make the most obvious decisions on offense when passing the ball to the open guy for the dunk. Hornacek and Stockton worked so well together because on the fly they could really alternate from passer to scorer. Ronnie appears to be the best passer out of the bunch of C.J., Kyle, Morris and himself, for what it is worth though. Once he gets more familiarity with the starters I'm sure Ronnie will end up getting more assists, but it's something he has to work on. He is supposed to be able to move with the ball, and create for others. So far I've only seen him score around the basket and hit an occasional set shot -- basically scoring in the exact same ways that Adam Keefe used to make baskets. Getting better from the outside will better allow him the space he needs to drive, though, so both problems are related to each other. Right now guys just sag off of him, and dare him to shoot it. Furthermore, he has to score the ball off of more than just dunks and lay-ups -- even if this means his shooting percentage will go down. The utility of this is that other teams have to defend him all over the court, and not just in the paint.
3. Better man to man defense: He's tall, he has a 6'11 wingspan, and he's fast. He anticipates passing lanes well, and is able to go north-south and east-west very quickly. He has the physical tools, but there's more to playing defense than just being there. (Otherwise Ostertag would have a few rings by now) If he can improve his man-to-man defense then marginal "stars" like Brandon Roy won't go off on the Jazz, and our team will get some more wins. There's nothing that suggests that he can't be a better defender . . . but at the end of last season on key possessions our amazing help defender (Andrei Kirilenko) had to be put on the other teams' best scorer -- which was successful only against guys not named Kobe. If Ronnie can be mentally able to check these guys without fouling, getting his confidence killed, or just being useless then Andrei can remain a free safety on defense getting deflections, double teaming and blocking shots. (Until we have a shot blocking bigman, we're going to need Andrei playing defense like that for us to be any good)

If you look at the huge jump Brewer made from his Rookie season to his 2nd Rookie season (i.e. last season when he finally got some time to play) you can assume that he's not done developing as a player just yet. I have high hopes for him, though I really wonder about where the playing time he needs is going to come from. After all, the Jazz aren't planing on paying C.J. Miles $15 million dollars just to hang out and give people high fives. Ronnie is no fool, though, and he knows that just because he is the incumbent starter does not mean that he's going to just be given that role next season. It's pretty obvious that he has to improve his outside shot, which will open up the other parts of his offensive game, and I'm sure that is something that he has focused on quite a bit this off-season. [For the record, Korver, Almond and C.J. all have picture perfect shooting strokes and have great range.]

Ronnie gets drafted, and people talk about his inability to really be a shooter . . . it's been 2 seasons now, he has to Improve.

That said, Ronnie is a very special player who has a great chance to help our team get to the next level. He's fast, he's athletic -- but we need to see three things from him this season otherwise we may just have to start dedicating a lot of our time towards making C.J. stronger or Morris Almond faster instead of holding our breath for Brewer to start shooting well.

Flashback Friday: Blue Edwards

Theodore "Blue" Edwards . . . man . . . he probably had the most statistically 'average' career of the most average NBA players. He really had done a whole lot, he was drafted by a perennial playoff team, was in a dunk contest, traded to a cellar dweller, dunked a lot, then moved onto an expansion franchise, got in some legal custody battle, and faded into oblivion . . . the sad part is that I was there every step of the way following his career. Blue was a 6'4/6'5 tweener guard/forward. He didn't really have three point range on his shot (but still shot a very respectable 33.5% from there for his career), and he was mostly a hustle player. The Utah Jazz drafted him 21st in the 1988-1989 NBA Draft. His best season as a pro had to be his first year out of Utah, playing in Milwaukee (part of that Jay Humphries, Larry Krystkowiak trade back in 1992-1993).

He played 33.3 mpg, and played in 82 games. Sure, he was out of the protective passing range of John Stockton -- so his shooting percentage dipped a bit. He still managed 16.9 ppg (off of 51.2 fg%, 79.0 FT%, 34.9 3pt%). 4.7 rpg, 2.6 apg and 1.6 spg -- all career highs. He left Milwaukee after the '94 season ended and somehow split time the next season with the Boston Celtics, and then the Utah Jazz again.

Blue as a Rookie with the Jazz	Blue became our Starter at the Two for a while	A veteran Blue Edwards was a key part of the Grizzlies gameplan

The second stage of his life began when he was taken in the expansion draft and headed north to play for the Vancouver Grizzlies.

He was a solid veteran player by this stage in his career, and was instrumental in guiding them to their handful of wins. I really rooted for him at this stage of his career, he was getting solid minutes and had a solid role for once. There he met and impregnated a nice Canadian girl (Kimberly Van de Perre) and had a custody battle with. (The custody battle went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada) Tsk Tsk. Who do you think you are, Shawn Kemp? But let's not remember him for all of that, that's not the point of Flashback Friday. (there was a point?)

Two distinct Blue Edwards moments come quickly to me, and my rose-colored glasses tinted memories of previous incarnations of the Utah Jazz. One game, I think in the playoffs on NBC, had Blue get an offensive rebound, then he fake dribbling it back out to re-set a play (Stockton even bought it and was waiting for the pass) and then he quickly turned back and drove to the basket and dunked the ball. Some NBC talking head (Bob Costas?) exclaimed that "Blue Edwards is playing like a TIGER!" and, well, that's a strange thing to say. (It's very Ron Burgundy)

The second moment was long after his "interesting" Dunk contest entry back when he was a nobody. This was back when Adam Keefe was a rookie playing for the Hawks and back when no one used to show up to the Omni to watch the Hawks play. This was back when Blue was playing for the Milwaukee Bucks, and for some reason Canadian TV was broadcasting this game between the Bucks on the road against the Hawks (sans 'Nique et al.). It was a broken play in the first quarter and the Omni was so quiet you could hear everything on the court, from the sneaker squeaks to the chatter of the players. It gave the game a more intimate feel in some ways. Well anyway, Blue got the ball in a broken play -- and if for no other reason than for the people sadly watching at home -- he took off from the circle and threw down a one handed traffic jam over a few Hawks. Sadly the play of the game happened in the 1st quarter of play. But I was so NBA starved growing up in Canada that I would watch anything . . . even Blue Edward's led Milwaukee Bucks teams. For good reason that highlight does not exist on YouTube, but I did find this interesting video that DOES feature Blue Edwards. It's a vid of the Top 10 plays of the week, from some random week during the 1990-1991 NBA Season. And thus, it's a classic all by itself and I could probably do a Flashback Friday on just the plays and players that appear in this YouTube offering.

Okay, I just watched this video again, and it truly is a masterpiece, a great collection of moments in time that were part of my childhood.

#10 -- David Benoit bricking a shot for the Jazz against the Spurs (another tough Texas team), Mike Brown being on the Jazz, and Blue skying in out of no where to do something ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the length ratio of his shorts and his compression shorts.

#9 -- John Battle beating Kurt Rambis off the dribble and getting the And-1 on Tom Chambers. Special note is that Danny Ferry is open but no one passes the ball to him, very classic.

#8 -- Dennis Hopson nails a three from behind half court against the Jazz

#7 -- I was watching this game on TV years ago, and I remember this play. Danny Ainge (who had won titles with the Celtics) does a pretty impressive no look pass on the break that results in a Buck Williams basket.

#6 -- Jordan and Pippen being Jordan and Pippen. Pip is seriously under-rated. Dee Brown (I) and Reggie Lewis are helpless as the Bulls run wild on them.

#5 -- Plastic-man against the Lakers. Kevin Willis and Adam Keefe round out the front court for the Atlanta Hawks in this highlight. The Lakers have Byron Scott, A.C. Green, Sam Perkins and Elden Campbell on the floor.

#4 -- Clyde the Glide basically drives and shoots without looking at the basket. He scores on (teammate) Kevin Duckworth, Doug West (before the alcoholism) and Felton Spencer. Terry Porter (another current NBA head coach / GM type) gets an assist on this, I think.

#3 -- Isiah Thomas with the rebound, assist and stupid face all while sitting on the floor, and not even looking at the ball ... against the Kings.

#2 -- Spudd Webb (how many Sacramento Kings highlights this week?) breaks down Kenny Smith (of TNT fame), and splits Otis Thorpe and "Akeem" Olajuwon for a pretty difficult lay-up.

#1 -- That now famous Larry Bird shot from that same Boston/Portland game that I was watching live on TV as a kid back in my parents basement. He gets the ball, is defended well by Cliff Robinson Clyde Drexler, manages to trip over himself, and throw up a three pointer that ties the game 122-122 with 2.0 seconds left in Boston Garden. Amazing.