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 . . .

Game 4 Recap: Utah 103, Portland 96

Game at a Glance:

The young and inexperienced Portland Trailblazers own a number of double digit leads over the Jazz in Salt Lake City, but are unable to close the deal as the Jazz (again without veterans Deron Williams and Matt Harpring) come from behind in the 4th quarter to win it -- the classic battle of experience and poise against youth and enthusiasm. Somehow this game reminded me of a game between the 1998 Jazz and the 1998 Spurs -- the Jazz won the battles back then, but you can see the potential for Portland to eventually win the war (they have a lot of potentially awesome young players), just as the Spurs clearly have. Portland fans don't have much to be upset with here (I fail to see why they are so down -- read their reactions here, here and here); they almost won a huge game against a division rival on the road -- without having their best player play their best game. Brandon Roy had 18 points (6-16 fg, 0-2 3pt), 3 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal -- if you guys pull off upsets without Roy scoring 20 you should be happy. And that's almost exactly what happened last night.

[ ESPN's Boxscore -- NBA.com's Highlights ]

Jazz Quartet -- Top Four Players of the Game:

Andrei Kirilenko	Brevin Knight	Mehmet Okur	Carlos Boozer
Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty	Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty	Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty	Photographed by Melissa Majchrzak for NBAE/Getty
Like every game this season, in the 4th quarter he's shut down the other team's best offensive player. He also finished with 17 points (5-8 fg), 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, and countless drawn fouls against Portland early in the 4th to put them in the penalty. AK-47 went 7-8 from the FT line to boot.	Maybe he gets more credit than he deserves, or maybe he gets less -- it doesn't matter, we don't win this game without his steadying influence and ability to be a disruptive force on defense. Brev finished with 6 points (3-4 from the floor), 6 assists, 3 steals and a board. Moreover, he ran the team and helped us get back from being down 11.	If it wasn't for his end of the shot clock magic in the 1st half, the Jazz go down by 20 instead of just 11 in this game. Okur is finally hitting some outside shots, and had a team high 22 points, and was 1 rebound away from a double double. (And a 20-10 game) He drew the defense to him, and allowed the Jazz to get offensive rebounds and post up wings in the 4th.	Like Memo, Boozer was just short of a double double and 20-10 game, he finished with 20 and 8. He was not as aggressive as I wanted him to be, and he took a lot more fading jumpers than he should have -- but with the game hanging in the balance he scored inside on a layup with less than 30 seconds left and made all of his free throws -- he had several key rebounds as well.

Hon. Mention:

Ronnie Brewer -- Brewer had 16 points (6-12 shooting, 1-1 from three, 3-3 from the FT line), 6 rebounds and 2 assists . . . and was instrumental for the win (that three was huge), but when it counted Brandon Roy was scoring on him / getting by him with ease. On the other hand, Brevin was much more active on defense and was big on both ends of the floor. If it was Jazz Quintet then Ronnie Brewer would have been there, but then I would end up feeling bad at some other game down the line where 6 guys for our club did something good, and lament about it not being a Jazz sextet, and that's just dumb, and potentially not work safe. I gotta draw the line somewhere, and Ronnie will have plenty of opportunities to make it down the line. He had a great game, and helped us on offense when we were making our run, and had some nice dunks -- but even more impressive where his confident outside jumpers in the 3th.

Digging Deeper:

I'm happy that we got this win, and I felt as though doing so without Deron was a distinct possibility. (Scroll down to week 3) That said, I tend to agree with Hammy over at True Blue Jazz -- this game was a European Rookie's open three point attempt away from being all tied up with 20 seconds to go -- we really could have used Deron's offense tonight. The good news is that we didn't need him, we won the game, and we're a game against the Thunder away from going 3 weeks without Deron Williams -- and haven't lost yet. The better news is that our bench is winning games for us. We've had a good bench for a few seasons now -- last year he did pretty okay (save for the playoffs) with Ronnie Price, Kyle Korver, Matt Harpring and Paul Millsap. (And CJ for emergencies)

This season we have Brevin Knight, Kyle Korver, Andrei Kirilenko and Paul Millsap -- this has been the line up that gets the Jazz on runs where we claw back into games, or go on and distance ourselves from the other team, with. Those four guys average 39.6 ppg (Only Korver is shooting under 46 fg% in that group at 43%), 18.3 rpg, 10.9 apg and 5.25 spg. Oh yeah, and those four guys get to the line an average of 12.9 times per game. Not too shabby for the first 4 guys off your bench.

Portland is a good team, and I'm happy that we beat them. They have a few guys injured right now -- though I think that losing Deron (not to mention a valuable bench guy in Harpring) is worse than losing Oden (who you guys didn't need to beat us 3 times last year) and Webster. I think that Outlaw, Batum and Fernandez gives Portland some of the best young wings out there -- and that's not even counting Brandon Roy. Aldridge has a very effective offensive game (inside and out), but seriously . . . 2 boards? Total? Kyle Korver out-rebounded LaMarcus. This is just something the Blazer fans should not tolerate. Especially when guys like Batum crash the boards and get 6 for their effort (no need to even mention Przybilla who was a one man wrecking crew in the paint with 7 points, 16 boards and a million blocks). Portland harried the Jazz into 16 turn overs (so many in the 1st and 2nd quarter alone) and were on their way to a solid road win. I wouldn't be surprised to see the season series end in a split, or even 3-1 in favor of the Blazers if this first game is any indication. How often are the Jazz going to go 21 for 22 at the free throw line in a game? We needed every one of those to get back into this game and secure the win.

The under-appreciated positive is that Jerry Sloan is making some really good changes to the rotation depending on the situations of the game. And older version of Sloan would keep pounding away at the square peg and try to make it fit in a round hole (which results in a loss) -- but he was confident enough in our roster's make up (props to GM Kevin O'Connor) that he could keep switching people in and out to work for advantages. Need defense? Plug in Knight. Portland bringing the zone? Put in Okur and Korver. Is Przybilla out of the game? Put in Boozer and Millsap to score inside. As Siler points out, it worked out for us in this game. Hopefully Sloan will keep doing this all season long.

Next Game: Friday November 7th, 2008 -- Oklahoma City Thunder @ Utah Jazz [9:00 PM EST]

A little early but . . . NBADraft.net's 2010 Top 10

This is really premature, but as Jazz fans, we all know why we should be keeping an eye on this . . . Well, here is nbadraft.net's mock draft for 2010:

1. John Wall, 6'4 PG
2. Ricky Rubio, 6'4, PG
3. Xavier Henry, 6'6, SG
4. Jrue Holiday, 6'4, PG/SG
5. Derrick Favors, 6'9, PF
6. Gani Lawal, 6'9, PF
7. Austin Daye, 6'10, SF
8. Donatas Motiejunas, 7'1, PF
9. Davin Ebanks, 6'8, SF
10. Scotty Hopson, 6'6, SG

I'm pretty sure that David Stern would do whatever it takes to make sure that we don't get Ricky Rubio, even though he's a dead ringer for a former Jazz player that we may all know . . . Who knows if any of those 10 guys will be true Lotto picks (i.e. the top 14 picked each year), or even if the Knicks will be in the lotto by then? (Thanks, guys . . . ) Even more surprising would be to guess what the Jazz would need in 2010.

There's just so much up in the air that will "eventually" sort itself out after next off-season. (God willing) So it'll be much easier to forecast a drafting direction for future years after that's all taken care of. I do know that if Price and Knight get short contracts from the Jazz this following off-season that the Jazz may be in need of a PG to help Deron out time to time.

By 2010 if our shooting guard situation still necessitates the drafting of young SGs then our current crop of 3 young guys (CJ, Ronnie B and Mobe) must not have panned out. Even more startling would be if one of our three recent centers all end up as duds (Fesenko, Koufos and Tomic). I'm guessing we'll either be on the look out for a PF -- we can't honestly expect to have Boozer, Okur, Kirilenko and Millsap all on the roster by then, and will need to reload at the 4 for sure.

Though . . . it would be fun to see Ricky as a rookie playing with our 2nd unit throwing oops to Andrei, and making crazy passes to Korver . . .

Final 2008 Olympic Standings & Updated FIBA Rankings

Photo by: Sergio Perez (Reuters)

No doubt, if you are crazy enough to be reading this blog, you stayed up last night to watch the Gold Medal Game. (And what a game it was!) Anyhoo . . . here are the final rankings for the 2008 Olympic Games and the updated FIBA Rankings. (Oh yeah, that's right, USA isn't #1 after all. Huh?)

	2008 Olympic Games			Rank (Previous rank from January, 2008)	FIBA Top 20 Rankings	Pts.
1 - Gold	USA	8 - 0		1 (3)	Argentina	876
2 - Silver	Spain	6 - 2		2 (1)	USA	832.2
3 - Bronze	Argentina	6 - 2		3 (5)	Spain	730
4	Lithuania	5 - 3		4 (11)	Greece	499
5	Greece	3 - 3		5 (2)	Serbia	469
6	Croatia	3 - 3		6 (6)	Lithuania	411
7	Australia	3 - 3		7 (14)	Germany	329
8	China	2 - 4		8 (4)	Italy	308
9	Russia	1 - 4		9 (8)	Australia	269
10	Germany	1 - 4		10 (12)	China	262.7
11	Iran	0 - 5		11 (9)	Puerto Rico	232.6
12	Angola	0 - 5		12 (17)	Angola	206
				13 (18)	Turkey	203
				14 (16)	New Zealand	187
				15 (7)	Russia	181
				16 (15)	Brazil	173.6
				17 (10)	France	169
				18 (19)	Croatia	165
				19 (13)	Canada	124.2
				20 (-)	Slovenia	124

Biggest risers / Biggest Fall since the end of EuroBasket 2007:

Greece and Germany both went up 7 spots -- partly due to their rankings in the pre-Olympic Qualifying tournament. Turkey and Angola both went up 5 spots -- Angola's ranking is inflated because their FIBA score happens to be buoyed by ranked wins against other FIBA Africa nations. (yes, their relative earned win score is less, but they still have to face easier comp than, say, the European or American teams) Furthermore, Angola is still ranked higher than Turkey, but if the two teams played I'm pretty sure Turkey would win -- Angola doesn't have anyone on their roster taller than 6'5, if I remember correctly. The Turks are huge up front (arguably bigger than Spain, Greece and Russia in the paint).

Italy, led by Andrea Bargnani (of the Toronto Raptors), Marco Belinelli (of the Golden State Warriors) and new kid on the block Danilo Gallinari fell 4 spots since the end of 2007. Canada, bereft of 'professionally' acting professionals fell 6 spots in 8 months. France, with a ton of NBA talent (Parker, Diaw, Pietrus, Diawara, Mahinmi, Turiaf, etc) went down an impressive 7 FIBA spots, Russia (who won EuroBasket 2007, and didn't make it out of the round robin part of the Olympics) fell 8 spots. France and Russia were both Top 10 teams 8 months ago. How the mighty have fallen!

Wait, The USA won the Gold Medal, isn't that worth +50 points at the very least, why are they #2?

I don't know. But for those who want to know, FIBA Asia champion Iran is ranked #23 in the world. Actually, the Top 25 rounds out to be: Venezuela (95.2), Nigeria (93.6), Iran (73.1), Lebanon (70.5) and Israel (60.0). If you want to see the full list, you know, if you wanted to confirm that India (#46, 9.9 pts.) was ranked higher than the Philippines (#63, 4.2 pts.) you could click here.

Gold Medal Game: Spain vs. USA

	USA beats  Argentina 101 - 81
	Wow! The United States had a tougher than expect fight against an Argentinean team that only had Manu for 6 minutes of action, eventually winning 101 - 81. Luis Scola had a great game for his nation, with 28 points, 11 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks. Carlos Delfino added 17 points, 8 rebounds and 2 steals to the cause -- though his shooting percentages were inefficient (33.3 fg%, 30.0 3pt%) to say the least. The American side was, once again, a balanced attack that features 7 players in double figure scoring (Anthony 21, James 15, Wade 12, Bryant 12, Paul 12, Bosh 11, Howard 10). The USA team won the battle of the glass 43 to 32, but that was really it. Both teams shot in the mid 40s (Argentina 44.1%, USA 47.1%); and both teams had the same number of turn overs (Argentina 16, USA 15) -- the difference, though, was the surprising proficiency the Americans had at the three point line (they made 10 threes this game, while Argentina only made 6), and the fact that the free throw disparity was ridiculous. Argentina went to the FT line 16 times and made 15 of them. The United States went to the free throw line 36 times (and made 27 of them). I didn't watch the game, so I don't know how it went -- but the more aggressive team usually gets to the line more. The boxscore suggests that this team was the USA.
	Spain beats Lithuania 91 - 86
	The other game ended up being (to me at the very least) an upset victory by Spain over Lithuania. Sure, Spain has all of those high profile players, but Lithuania is (usually) a better team. (Lithuania is like the Detroit Pistons -- they are always at the final four stage, but hardly ever break through) Spain was up by 2 at the end of the 1st quarter. Then Lithuania was up by 2 at the half. Then Lithuania goes up by 4 at the end of three. Spain had a 4th quarter come back and ended up outscoring the Lithuanians by 9 to finish the game with the 91 - 86 win. The first thing that is interesting is that Spain wins by 5 points in a game where Lithuanian workhorse Linas Kleiza plays only 11 minutes and doesn't score at all. Why is this important? It is because in previous games this Olympics he had scored 13 (+ game winner), 22, 18, 12 and 15 points. He was a major cog for this team -- and despite his absence (due to an ejection early in the game), the Lithuanians were able to go into the 4th quarter with the lead.
	Spain was, of course, playing without Jose Calderon, so it should cancel out, right? (Except Spain is deeper at PG than Lithuania is behind Kleiza) Raul Lopez had 7 points, 3 assists and 2 steals for Spain, and Ricky Rubio had 4 points and 4 assists in Calderon's absence. Together they also totaled 8 rebounds -- not too shabby from your 2nd and 3rd string point guards. Aside from that, the usual suspects did their things (Pau Gasol had 19, Rudy Fernandez with 18, Sarunas Jasikevicius had 19 and 6 assists, and Simas Jasaitis had 19 points and 8 rebounds)

I fully expect Lithuania to win the Bronze now, especially how close they got to the Gold Medal game, this is a certainty if Manu can't play in that game. As for the big show, well, you have to think that the USA team will try to embarrass Spain a 2nd time on their way towards achieving International redemption.

Olympic Men's Basketball Final Four!

This is it, ladies and gentlemen. One of these four teams is leaving China without a medal.

	Argentina
	USA		Gold Medal:
			Silver Medal:
			Bronze Medal:				Spain
							Lithuania

Which one do you think it will be? The Gold medal match will be between the winner of Argentina vs. USA against the winner of Spain vs. Lithuania. The Americans are just too deep for Argentina. Spain boasts more NBA level talent, but Lithuania hustles and plays a great team game. Unfortunately for Argentina, I am leaning towards them losing the Bronze Medal game -- Spain and Lithuania are just better teams than theirs.