Jazz Dreams from the Hill

first: today's post brought to you by one of the best recordings from my favorite band, covering one of the best songs from punk/indie legends. second: my trial run of photoshop is up, so paint will have to do until the hardcopy of PSE9 gets here next week.

since last season, i have had a recurring dream. not exactly recurring, i suppose, as the dream is changing to reflect what happens in my waking life. i don't know a lot about interpreting subconscious manifestations of your life, but i do recognize a couple of things here: (a) i think way too highly of myself; and (b) being part of something larger than myself is important to me.
the first dream in this sequence that i remember with any particularity was being waved off the floor at ESA to allow another player to check in. i exited on the wrong side of the court (near the miller's seats) and had to walk around to the bench, where ronnie brewer politely informed me that, though we were on the same team, we had never been officially introduced. ronnie price also shook my hand and gave me his name when i sat down next to them.
the next dream i had, early after the jazz exited the finals, is being welcomed to the team after my strong showing in the walk-on tryouts hosted by jeff hornacek (despite the fact that, in real life, i have a 3" vertical leap and can't make a layup if my life depended on it). although i made the cut, jerry DNP'd me for the first three games and i forgot my locker combination (high school?) and had to run to the old fanzz store in the basement to buy a new uni before the third game.
the third installment that i recall with any clarity was only a few weeks ago. my wife and i were headed to dinner at a very fancy and well-regarded restaurant in a downtown SLC building (that doesn't exist). on our way up the stairs to the private dining room for Very Important People, paul millsap stopped us on the stairs to say hello. i responded, "paul millsap, how do you know who we are?" "shoot, everybody knows who you two are."
finally, early this morning i dreamed that i had been re-activated for the team, and at morning shootaround i discovered that fes is actually only about 6'4" when you see him person. also sloan made it clear that i was on the squad only for practice or injury-based emergencies. so i snuck outside for a cigarette with a friend of mine who works for a local newspaper. but this time i remembered my locker combination (someone had cleaned it out in my absence).
while i recognize that most dreaming is likely just random firing of synapses, and that last night's adventure was probably the result of lurking on the UJ360 message boards until 3 am, it's still a little comforting to know that even if i never step foot on the floor at ESA in reality, the team feels enough like part of who i am enough to not laugh me off the floor in my dreams.
p.s. after telling my friend at the paper about this morning's hallucinations, he gave me an insightful response: "First, you might be the only person in America having dreams that include Kyrylo Fesenko; second, don't take the lack of playing time personally. Sloan has a history of being hard on rooks."
apparently my dreams are wild enough for me to possibly be gay for fesenko but not quite wild enough to let sloan start a rookie; even my subconscious recognizes that some things are permanent.

 

Another great post from James, this is the last one until he writes a new one.  Remember to e-mail us at benchcast@gmail.com for your input and if you want to be on the Benchcast.

Don’t Start Thinking About CJ

This is James’s second post we are putting up, enjoy.  There will be one more coming later today, as well as a new Benchcast that Andy and I did last night which is pretty terrible, but oh well.  I also have a couple new posts today too.

my quick response to a thought-provoking post from Utah Jazz 360's Nick Knows All:

i’ve given this a little thought as well, and i’m not sure that i agree, nick. andrei carries an enormous negative stigma because of his paycheck, and i think that reveals itself often with this kind of thought process.

consider some numbers from the two players (CJ/AK):
rebounds – 3.2/5.1
assists – 1.7/2.8
steals – .97/1.17
blocks – .43/1.22
fouls – 2.6/1.8

now look at those numbers and assume that every whole number in a given category results in a basket by the opposing team or the jazz based on where the ball ends up (i’m being purely hypothetical here, simply for the sake of argument). that means that AK adds an additional 3.8 points per game based on rebounds, 2.2 ppg based on assists, 0.4 ppg from steals, 1.58 ppg from blocks, and costs the jazz 1.6 ppg less, when you compared to CJ’s performance. granted, CJ’s numbers are based on 9.6 fewer minutes per game. but that still leaves AK with an additional (potential) 9.58 points per game versus CJ.

and consider that CJ’s foul numbers would increase half again if we extrapolate him and AK switching minutes played – that puts him at 3.9 personal fouls per game. and AK, assuming he moves from 32.3 minutes per game (where he is now) to 22.7 mpg (where CJ is now), would only be scoring around 8 points per game. CJ’s scoring goes up to 17.5 ppg: CJ starting gives the jazz a 6 point advantage running the numbers out, but he also costs us almost two more fouls each contest – possibly for four points, dragging his effectiveness at starter to only two more points per game.

on top of that, the jazz would go from having an off-the-bench scoring threat that puts up almost 12 points a game to AK bringing that estimated 8 points.

CJ needs to stay on the bench. the fact of the matter is that AK and Raja need to step up their game a bit – along with the entire rest of the team – if the jazz are going to make it out of the first round come april.

Everything In Moderation

This is the first of 3 posts by James that I’m copying over to the site, this one is from Jan 10th.

today's entry brought to you by everybody's favorite "white trash, two kikes and a spic." this is their own description of themselves. not kidding.

despite a terrific effort in the fourth + OT against houston on saturday night, i must admit that i have overly embraced this year's jazz squad. or, rather, i've been too enthusiastic about the potential within this team and not giving enough credit to reality.
paul millsap had an unbelievable final 8 minutes against the rockets. deron played pretty well; 14 points and 15 dimes. but he also had 4 turnovers and shot 1-6 from beyond the arc. the jazz pulled down 31 boards just between AK, paul, and big al (with 53 boards overall to the rockets' 42).
but, the brilliance of the performance was overshadowed by the rusty-if-not-just-plain-bad showings the jazz have been putting together for a few weeks now. in fact, the biggest shadow cast over utah collecting the W on saturday night was the fact that it took an all-star night from millsap, in overtime, to beat a team that sits at 16-21; a team who is dead last in its division; a team that sits tied for sixth-worst organization in the entire NBA.
winning in overtime against the dregs of the NBA? that doesn't exactly reflect a bright future for the victorious jazz.
what exactly is wrong with this squad? i thought maybe a disinterested home crowd was partially to blame - and to some extent, i still do. but i will concede that it's harder for a crowd to back a team that plays .500 ball in the northwest division.
i think anybody who is interested in the jazz knows what the symptoms are at this point in the season: poor rebounding, no-showing in the first quarter/half, streaky shooting, etc. effectively, we look what we should have looked like in the pre-season. and that's where, in my opinion, the trouble begins.
with the jazz's roster getting turned inside-out and upside-down over the summer, nobody expected - even with the acquisitions of jefferson and bell - the jazz to crush all comers back in early october. when regular season play started against denver and phoenix, any shake of the magic 8 ball came up with "buckle up for a long and painful rebuilding process." but things started clicking shortly after the season began and suddenly the bleakness began to sharpen up; color emerged where once there was only gray.
and so the problem intensified. the jazz, playing against crap teams (or good teams that completely collapsed late in the game, had a chance to build their confidence while not building their skills. or at least the skills weren't being put together fast enough to keep up with the rest of the league.
don't believe me? check the standings again. the jazz may currently be tied for 4th in the west and 8th overall, that's true. but look at the numbers in the west again and remember that the northwest is the most competitive division in the NBA (at least in terms of landing a top playoff seed). and also consider that the western conference, despite the recent rise of chicago and miami, is still the superior group of teams in the NBA. case in point: the seventh-ranked team in the east, the pacers, are 14-20, while philly, in 8th, are barely above .400 ball; the 8th in the west, portland, is 20-18.
keeping those numbers in mind, look at the jazz and its records (1) at home, (2) in the NW division, and (3) in the west:

1. the jazz are 13-7 (.650)at home. not too shabby, in theory, but not what jazz fans are used to. more importantly, it's not that great compared to some similar or "worse" teams (in terms of overall records) in the nba: memphis (.647), portland (.750), denver (.789), OKC (.737), atlanta (.722). get it? you effectively have to get to teams under .500 before you see worse home records, and memphis has almost the exact record at home as the jazz at 17-20 overall.
2. utah is tied for first in its division with durantula and the thunder. as of today, the jazz lead OKC in road record (.667/.611, respectively) and in no other category. OKC holds the edge in home record (see above), division record (OKC @ .857, UTA @ .429), and conference record (OKC @ .609, UTA @ .542).
   denver, four games back in the NW, is only worse than the jazz on the road. denver's numbers: at home (DEN @ .789, UTA .650), against NW teams (DEN @ .667, UTA @ .429), and against western conference teams (DEN @ .583, UTA @ .542).
   even portland, those wes matthews stealing sons of bitches, has some edges on the jazz where it counts come playoff seeding time. home record (POR @ .750, UTA @ .650), NW record (POR @ .556, UTA @ .429) and a similar conference record (POR @ .538, UTA @ .542).
3. i don't think i need to break down to percentages how the jazz fit with the rest of the west, since excluding the three better teams (spurs, dallas, lake-show), only new orleans is currently 8th or higher (6th) in the conference without being in the northwest. they're three games behind the jazz and have better home and division records.

what do these numbers mean? they mean the jazz have been playing well against teams that don't matter, or at least the jazz aren't playing as well against teams that matter as those teams themselves handle the best of the west.
so what does this have to do with moderation? watching paul put up 46 on miami was intoxicating. the fact that it was one of four consecutive games on the road that resulted in a win only added to feeling. having a team that makes these semi-heroic comebacks from 10+ time and again lends a fan, like myself, to believe that no hole is too deep.
but the fact is the holes are being dug against shallow teams - at least, that's been true excluding the glorious road streak of november, and that was very early in the season. while the jazz have been talking about improving and executing better as the season moves forward, those four november road wins were effectively wiped away when we lost to miami and atlanta at home in horrid fashion. adding insult to injury, portland spanked us twice in a week, while dallas and new orleans each put on a "how to crush a college-level team in the NBA" clinic against Jerry's Kids in december.
the thing to take in moderation is the jazz's moderation. sometimes they play like NBA champions - but it's only a few moments at a time and generally against mediocre squads. i'm not trying to suggest that i have lost hope in the jazz. in fact, running through these numbers has done the opposite for me. the jazz, despite having numbers of a .400 - .500 team in some regards, have shown flashes of brilliance in their inconsistency. so long as sloan is at the helm, i still have a firm belief that things will continue to get better.
but i think it might be time to have a more realistic view of what's coming in the next few weeks. i've said a few times already that the jazz had a shot at going on a few 10 game win streaks between now and late march. barring a miracle (herely of rapid development to full potential, not one to potential that doesn't exist), i'm thinking it looks more like a couple 5 - 6 game streaks would be fantastic but not inevitable.
even so, that kind of winning still leaves the jazz in the playoff hunt while the team continues to improve. hey, even if they only improve moderately (looping on a theme!), OKC doesn't stay at the top of the northwest. that will be something to celebrate in excess.

Slick City Round Up

This is one of our newest columns that I’ve been promising for months, but now that it’s finally above 20 F for the first time in about 3 weeks, mostly because it’s going to snow and rain for the next 5 days, and I’m slightly less busy at work I’m writing again.  Also, Uj and Ron finally have internet and new iPads so maybe they will start writing some things too.  We also are going to start pulling some stuff from James’s blog, since he actually writes.

So on to Slick City Round Up where we pull from local sports blogs and give them a little pub on this site, as if people actually read this pile of crap.

First is Salt City Hoops one of the 3 or 4 independent Jazz blogs out there.  This article is specifically a re-cap of last night’s Jazz win over the Knicks 131-125.  But what made it so great was the line “It was nice of the Knicks to agree to play church ball with the Jazz”  A very Utah reference to shooting lots of 3s as a reference to the popular Mormon church sponsored basketball leagues that cover the state.  And really that’s what local sports commentary is all about, extremely obscure parochial references.

The other blog that I wanted to highlight is my buddy James’s blog Harpringer of Doom another ostensibly Jazz blog.  Everyone should check his stuff out either over there or at this site since we are going to start dual posting all his articles over here.  Great stuff and he actually writes, so isn’t that wonderful.

We are recording a new podcast tonight so get ready for that to be up tomorrow.  Good night and don’t eat the mussels.

Bench Cast Episode 4

So here we are with episode 4 of the Bench Cast, we have a large cast today with Uji, Ron, Fran and myself.  We talk about the Haslem weed bust, the new Jazz uniforms, BYU going independent, the joy around the blogfrica about Mariotti going to jail and a little on Favre.  http://dnpcd.podbean.com/

Remember to subscribe from there or from iTunes where you can leave us a review, which is super helpful, just click the link or search for bench cast.  Also, follow me on twitter, it’s a complete waste of your time and will probably get you fired, but why not, http://twitter.com/AceMahogany

We should be back with another podcast on Wednesday, so it will actually be up on Thursday is my guess, it will be the NFC preview and then Saturday we will do an AFC preview to get you all geared up for the season.  Until then stay tuned for our regular posts on the site.

Local Roundup with New Jazz Uniforms and Boozer as the ex-girlfriend

Since I haven’t done the locals only post I always claim I want to do, I thought I would use the unvailing of the new Jazz uniforms to highlight a couple local sports blogs, SLC Dunk which unlike me bothered to go down and actually take some pictures and Salt City Hoops which had a little article about Carlos Boozer as a girlfriend out of the Jazz’s league, a sports meme in this city that I don’t really like.

John has some great pictures from the event last night and some stills of the new uniforms, but doesn’t really talk about them except the crowed reaction.  I think there is quite a bit to say. 

Let’s start out with the good, the complete dropping of the mountains from the actual jersey is a huge plus, now if they could just get it off the floor, although the color change is a plus.  I also like the simplicity of the logo, no Utah on it, the ball is a little much on the home uniforms with 3 actual colors, but I’m glad they went with like color shadows for the homes.  Using the alternate color for the numbers is good too, the green is especially a good touch.

I can’t tell if the roads are the purple color of the Jazz logo or a blue, I think they are blue which makes no sense since that is not one of the colors any more.  I don’t think there would have been anything wrong with going green for the roads, I love the throw back greens and hope they are used about 80% of the time this year.

Which brings us to the problems with these uniforms, the trim.  Three stripes on the upper trim and then the alternate color blocks going down the sides has been very popular in the early 2000s, but makes them look armature to say the least.  The best part about the green uniforms is color consistency and a simple yellow trim.  The trim causes busyness around the face of the players and the stripe breaks up the consistent outline of the body, just not good aesthetics.  Also, with the blue they look like some kind of alternate Pacer’s uniform, and nothing good can come of that.

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Now a quick little mention of Dan Evans’s article on Boozer over at Salt City.  He goes into the very tired metaphor about being in high school and dating a girl out of his league, like Boozer was to the Jazz then realizing that she was a pain in the ass after they broke up.  This idea is fresh in my mind after watching the extremely average She’s Out of My League last night for me other site.

I know that Boozer was a fairly big time free agent, but he was not really that big, so I don’t understand why he was so far out of our league, I mean isn’t Jefferson pretty much at his level?  Also I don’t buy this implication that the Jazz need people that are grateful to be here, sure we aren’t the favorite place of most 24 year old millionaires, but that doesn’t mean we have to wallow in self pity about it.  That’s what people who think they are not good enough to date hot girls say.  You do what you have to do to be in the picture, many of things we’ve be doing, like spending money and having a winning team.  We need to be like the nerdy kid in high school that got to college started running track, got into shape, started up a company and now rich and decent to look at.

Dr. Dunkenstein on SportsBeat Sunday

 

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

So this week on Sports Beat Sunday for those of you who may not be from Utah or watch local sports is just that, a local sports show.  So they had on Derrell Griffith, former Jazz swingman and holder of my all time favorite NBA nickname.

Unfortunately on the website they only mention Hot Rod calling his Golden Griff, which like all Rod’s nicknames sounds like it was in the Tacoma Star Republican Trib from 1897.  I wish the Jazz would pick up another 2 or 3 that would throw down like that, they need some Dunkensteining back in the mix, or a crazy assistant coach that yells, “It’s Dunkensteen!”

On The Google Machine

The internet, and it’s tubes.

KSK - Peter King: I link to this post almost every week because it’s awesome.  I can never get enough of Drew breaking down Peter King’s weekly diatribe on coffee, loving Bret the Indecisive and what hotels are on Pete’s shit list this week.

Juggalos at Film Drunk: Unfortunately this doesn’t have anything to do with Miss Tequila getting Juggaloed off the stage, I guess no one gives a shit about throwing the first stone when you’re a piece of shit meth head.  But it does have Tom Green and some hilarious quotes.

Ice Ice Soccer at With Leather:  The Icelandic soccer team is back at it with some new goal celebrations, now if only they could fix what I call the “goal celibacy” problem with soccer.

New Jazz Uniforms: Brad Rock talks about the new Jazz unis, he’s right on almost every point except the skyline Nuggets uniforms which are fucking awesome.

Jefferson Vs. Boozer (Not too clever a title)

Yeah, but isn't a comparison of Richard Jefferson and Devin Harris's girlfriends better to look at?

So pretty much everyone on the internet that writes about this kind of stuff has done a comparison between former Jazz power forward Carlos Boozer and PF to be Al Jefferson, although not actually a trade it was affectively one in how it turned out.  So I’m going to jump right on the bandwagon and and give my two cents on this.
It’s kind of hard to compare their recent numbers due to Al’s knee injury, which is affectively a two year injury as we all know now, so we can dismiss last years numbers completely.  If he is back at full strength for this season he should be a wash with Boozer offensively if they were on their respective squads.  The thing is they are not, Jefferson has been essentially a post up player that had the ball dumped into him while Boozer has the Williams run Jerry Sloan pick and roll.  I think with Jefferson running the Utah offense his numbers should improve, he’s taller and he’s hands seem as good so there is no reason to think that he doesn’t pick up a couple more baskets with actual plays being run for him.
Now on to rebounding, something else that he has had almost identical numbers to Boozer on.  I would think that this could improve too, with a couple other big men in there to box out, namely Utah’s too remaining centers I think this can only help.  Jefferson is also tall enough to play more of a center position if you run him with Okur playing a 6-11 shooting forward kind of thing, or put Fez in and go really big in the hopes of matching the Lakers, something Boozer and a younger Fez could not do.
But this brings up his defense, it’s hard to say if he is just as bad as Boozer or actually worse.  His knee could have been causing some defensive lapses, but really it’s hard to say.  He also had no help in the middle up in Minnesota, so maybe paired with some other bigs, a good coach and an actual defensive system he could improve.  I think this is an area where the Jazz have the best chance of improving Jefferson’s game, with Williams and Bell committed to defense I would like to see it rub off on the other players, especially the bigs.
And finally the intangibles, which Monson in his article over at the Salt Lake Trib touched on, attitude, which can be a little over rated.  But in this case where Williams on many nights seemed to be alone out there trying to win having his much bigger Robin actually care about playing for this team is only an improvement.  Jefferson has been more excited to come to Utah than anyone I can remember and this should bring out the best in him.  Besides that he doesn’t have any stupid tattoos, deodorant stains under his arms, crazy ass wife or house that he rented to Prince (although thanks to his last stop over maybe a Prince connection is in the works).
Best of all his contract is less, for a shorter period, which is important with the new CBA and potential lock out as I’ve said many times and he is 3 years younger and barely behind Boozer.  Also he has only had one injury, not a string of them keeping him out almost 25% of the time.  Finally to get him the Jazz had to give up Kosta, which is great for my friend Zander because all the Greek chicks in Salt Lake were swooning over him and poor Zander had no game.

Jazz East vs. Jazz West

Due to some of the vagaries of the NBA trade market the Bulls have now become the Bizarro Jazz, which I think presents the question (not begs the question, that means something else) of which Jazz are better, especially due to the Jazz’s history with the Bulls.  I have to say that I always loved the that Boozer and Brewer were really easy names to involve with drinking during Jazz games, often referring to our friends as the Brew Crew (yeah I know how frat douche that is) when going down to ESA.
I’m not going to do a position by position run down on this since it doesn’t really make sense since some of the players don’t really match up.  It’s going to be more of an over all feel of the teams and what they can do and what the Jazz have lost and the bulls have gained.
To start out let me take a contradictory position to both some of my friends and the general consensus of fans around Utah about two players we lost, Boozer and Brewer.  I have never really had the animus towards Boozer that most people have had, I think we had gotten so used to Karl Malone, who was in many ways the BEST power forward ever that we held Boozer up to a standard that he had no way of achieving.  To think that Williams/Boozer only a few years into their carriers was going to match Stockton and Malone at the height of theirs is insane.  Boozer certainly had a lot of problems, he was a terrible ball handler, dropping the ball I don’t know how many times in the paint, he was injured about 25% of the time and was a terrible defender; but he was also a 20 and 10 guy every night he played and had some real moments of brilliance.
Brewer was exactly the opposite, he was way over rated by most fans, mostly for being that Jerry Sloan kind of player, someone who played defense and didn’t open their mouths, like a good draft horse out on Jerry’s Illinois farm.  Now don’t get me wrong, I loved Brewer, but wasn’t really too worried about him leaving, although athletic he couldn’t create off the dribble, he was a poor shooter, especially from 3 and while his passing lane defense was great, his on ball defense was not.  Mathews, who is also gone at this point was much better at shutting down 2s, which is critical in this league and especially the west.
So what we have here is the Bulls picking up an often injured, but still all star caliber power forward and a shooting guard that can’t shoot.  I don’t know how affective Boozer will be with Rose running the point, they certainly won’t be running the pick and roll offense and I think with Brewer as the 2 a lot of shots will come from Rose with minimal ball movement.  The coaches obviously don’t even compare, so it’s hard to see how a very disciplined passing offense will be put into place in Chicago.  Utah on the other hand still has Williams who knows the Sloan offense very well and I think Jefferson, if the knee is no longer a problem is even more well suited for that style offense with more size and frankly more desire to work with Williams in the offense.
I also think that Bell is much needed, especially with Korver gone, there needs to be two people that can stretch the floor and Bell is a much better range shooter than either Brewer or Mathews.  He is also a much, much better on ball defender and that was something the Jazz really needed at the 2.  Besides that he has more playoff experience and that killer attitude that everyone on the Jazz besides Williams has been lacking for the last 3 or 4 years.  If Miles can continue to improve his long range game, the addition of Bell with Okur adding that unique big man 3 point option to stretch the floor in a unique way, especially if Jefferson can manage the key more affectively by himself, and Fez continues to improve this may be the Jazz team I have been wanting to see for a while now.
The Bulls also have Noah and Deng in the middle which I don’t think any of the Jazz’s big men can really compare to.  The way those two rebound and fill out the key if impossible for Okur to match with his play style and Fez has a real long way to go to match them in any meaningful way.  The real difference makers to me are going to be at the point and then defensively.  It’s unfortunate that these two teams will only play twice this year because I think this would be a very interesting match up and have something to say about certain players and certain GM moves.

The Jazz’s Free Agent Strategy

I’ve listened to a lot of the absolutely great sports radio we have around here in regards to the Jazz and their moves this off season and free agency, it seems to mostly be at the level of two guys at a bar and by bar I mean Lumpy’s.  Not that Monson and Kyle and all these other guys don’t know the players and don’t have a rudimentary understanding of sports, but the lack of discussion of the operating aspects of professional teams is astonishing.  And while I haven’t been paying too close attention to the Jazz blogs, which I probably should do I have heard no mention of salary, contract length or the CBA.

While I have no problem with letting Boozer and Korver and Mathews go in principle and also very much like the pick up of Bell (Jefferson is probably a wash for Boozer and I always have concerns about knee problems) it wasn’t until listening to Simmons a week ago that the moves really started to seem excellent to me.  While I don’t have the time or even care to go spelunking through the sewer that is the current CBA like the Sports Guy does so that I can faux GM every trade possibility out there, nor do I think that the new CBA will be the nuclear bomb option that he seems to think it is, I do take these into account and believe that the business side is as critical as the actual game being played on the floor.

Because of this I really like both of these pick ups, not just for the money savings, which is very important, but because both of these contracts are at least two years shorter than what would have been needed to secure the current players.  Not only does this prevent a mistake from being on the books as long, but doesn’t saddle the Jazz with a long term contract that may be way over priced when the new CBA is negotiated, looking at you Hawks!

Two years from now when there is a whole new CBA, there could be players available at prices that we can’t even imagine now and having the flexibility to get them, while still maintaining a competitive team for this season and the next two might just be what it takes to put the Jazz in a realistic position to be a contender.

Career day getting to be cliche at E.S.A.???

Last night during the first half of the jazz game I was contemplating what to write for my first post on DNP-CD, I was going to use this first piece of writing to introduce myself as a sports fanatic! As the game progressed, I noticed, while flipping back and forth from the TCU v. BSU game, Devin Brown was about to reach his career high against his former Utah team. Look, we all know the Jazz are soft on the inside, and although play above average help-side defense, we seem to lose track of a player who isn't really a "threat" on the opposing offensive end. BIG MISTAKE!!! I just don't understand how so many players, both good and bad and some really really bad, put up career numbers against the jazz? I just want to show you a couple examples...I will start with the big names, that might not be surprising and probably could have happened to any team in the league considering their talent. First, the silky smooth southpaw Michael Redd drops 57 points on the Jazz in 2006. Second, Ray Allen rains down on the Jazz with the former Seattle Supersonics for a cool 54 points back in 2007. Now here is where some of the players are hardly recognizable, unless you are an NBA/NCAA basketball junkie! Jonny Flynn of the Minnestoa T-Wolves hurries to a quick 28 points and two of those points being the game winner in 2009, oh and did I mention he was/is a rookie in the league this year. Another rookie that I had to wikipedia just to make sure he actually played in the NBA was Toney Douglas from the NY knickerbockers, who???-exactly!!! Douglas came off the bench to record his career high of 21 points, this was in 2009 and he also is a rookie! Now being from Utah I have watched Chase Budinger down in AZ and knew who he was, but for all of you who don't he was the tall, awkward, ginger that had his face stomped on by an opposing player in the NCAA tournament last year. Although he didn't score more than 30 or even 20 for that matter, he hardly plays, he scored 17 points this year against the jazz, oh and did I also mention it is his first year in the National Basketball Association as well. Now this last guy I am gonna mention ripped my heart out and most of the jazz nation, his name is Linas Kleiza.  Kleiza who onced played for the division rival Denver Nuggets scored an unbelievably awkward, ugly, unathletic 41 points!!! I can't quite grasp this concept, a very consistent,Jerry Sloan coached team, highly respected around the league for being very physical and relentless, and these rookies are coming into the ESA like it was there own backyard. This is beginning to become a very bad habit for the Utah Jazz and now when the Boston Celtics come into town, we don't need to worry about Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, or even Sheed.....we need to worry about Brian Scalabrine!!!!!

Post #1

So here we are on the 1st Monday of 2010 and the first post of DNP-CD.  After years of enjoying that line at the bottom of NBA box scores in the sports section of the Deseret News I've decided to dedicate an entire blog to the NBA's version of the Mendoza line.  There just seemed to be something perversely satisfying to see that in a game that only dresses 12 people for 48 minutes of high intensity activity that there would always be 2 or 3 guys that just never played because their coach felt a tired #7 guy was still better than they are for even 1 or 2 garbage time minutes.
2010 seemed like the perfect time in second way, as New York Knickerbockers's coach Mike D'Antoni has used the power of the did not play - coaches decision to reinvent being a GM from the bench.  After successfully DNPing Starbury out of the league last year, in the greatest DNP-CD of all time it looked like he was back at it again with Nate Robinson this year.  Only, he had transcended the obvious and used the long term DNP-CD as a powerful multinational tool, bringing Nate off the bench for a career high 41 point explosion and then cutting his minutes drastically the next in what seems like a return to the last spot on the bench and another stretch of DNP-CD box scores for Nate in the near future.
This could be just a new tactic to create a trade chit out of Nate, a reinvention of the original Stephon DNP-CD of last year, a DNP-CD 2.0 so to speak.  This is one we will just have to ride out, but either a new era is a upon us and this blog is dedicated to it.
In a much less metaphorical way we will be talking about local Salt Lake sports, and then the specific team interests outside of the local arena that each one of us enjoys.  I think we will all have something to say routinely on the Jazz, the main focus of the blog.  I hope to talk about the limbo that find themselves in, a perpetual middle of the pack western team that seems to be stuck between the slowdown philosophy of the 1990's and the up tempo, inside outside, but not so much give and go transitional NBA of today.  Uj, goes to the games and will probably just talk about drinking 6 beers at half time and having Steven Jackson threaten to kill him during a game and Ron will discuss his hatred of Carlos Boozer, the one constant in his NBA life, that is if Ron ever gets back to me about writing.
As far as other sports go, I think there should be some U of U action during football season, and maybe some Rugby updates too, as well as other MWC info, possibly some college basketball.  I will mention my Steelers, Pens and Yankees as much as possible, Uj will go with the Vikes, Flyers and Red Sox, and Ron will be a Chicago guy all around, Cubs specifically on the baseball, so there should be lots of shit talking going on there do some serious division over laps.
Sometime soon we are also hoping to start a podcast, hopefully once a week to begin with.  Also, I think there will be lots of bad spelling, mildly racist jokes and the 'F' 'S' and 'Scrotum Sucking Cunt-Bag' words.  Also, we may talk about other blogs that have anything to do with ours, there are probably even some other Jazz-centric blogs out there, but I haven't read them so I'll assume they kinda suck.  So get ready, because there is a lot of chatter at the end of the bench for those of us who Did Not Play - Coaches Decision.