The Downbeat
The Downbeat - 2 September 2010 - #307 - The Boom Beaches Edition
by Basketball John on Sep 2, 2010 9:24 AM MDT
in The Downbeat
11 comments
One of the big reasons why I think Boozer never endeared himself to Jazz fans were that his interviews and such seemed to be no more human than what Cleverbot spits out. When asked by ESPN what his goal was for the coming season, he replied, "A championship." He then goes on to give the following,
With our combination of what we have on our team, with myself in the post, with D. Rose at the point guard spot, Joakim [Noah] plugging that middle up, Luol Deng being very versatile on the wing, I think we have a team that can rival anybody. I think we'll be able to compete against every team in the league.
That should sound familiar because it sounds just like everything he's said while he was with the Jazz. He told the DesNews when he signed that his goal with the Jazz was a championship. If I had dug up the following quote, it would sound just like Boozer,
With our combination of what we have on our team, with myself in the post, with D. Will at the point guard spot, Memo plugging that middle up, Ronnie Brewer being very versatile on the wing, I think we have a team that can rival anybody. I think we'll be able to compete against every team in the league.
I don't expect him to not have his goal as winning a title and not competing against every team in the league. It always seemed that he would input questions, run it through some sort of algorithm based on what he thought the person wanted to hear, and spit back out an appropriate response.
I'm looking forward to the honest opinions and talk we'll get from Big Al.
In case you haven't read the AK interview posted as a FanShot, here's my favorite quote from that story. When asked about whether the Jazz wanted him to stay out of the FIBA tourney, he replied,
Incidentally, none of the NBA club is unable to prevent basketballer to play for the team. So it is entirely my decision. But we must take into account: "Utah" gave me all the things you can only dream of. Many readers might think: in the "Jazz", they say, gathered by the bourgeoisie and the capitalists who are not interested in anything except money. (Laughs) Of course, the money they are interested.
It's best read in a broken Russian accent voice. If "Let's play the basketball" ever gets retired, "Jazz... capitalists who are not interested in anything except money. (Laughs)" might be the new tagline.
Here's our logo for the Dodge Barrage
We used beaches because you can't have any swears in your team name. The palm trees are for the beach and the nuclear cloud for the boom. Thanks to Kurt for the idea for the BOOM.
You gotta get out on that,
Karl Malone: Owning the Spurs (via KarlMalowned32)
Thursday poll. The Bulls finished 41-41 last season but added Boozer, Korver, and Brewer to their lineup. They'll improve on that record. Last season, the Jazz finished 53-29. They lost Boozer, Korver, and Matthews. The west is also a tougher conference during the regular season. Given that, who will win more games this season? Leave your win total predictions in the comments.
The Downbeat - 1 September 2010 - #306 - The Stacked Edition
by Basketball John on Sep 1, 2010 9:31 AM MDT
in The Downbeat
33 comments
Jerry Stackhouse ladies and gentleman (via BDL),
Sixers @ Jazz 3-20-96 Jerry Stackhouse Fights Jeff Hornecek (via RareAir310)
This isn't the only time Stack has fought with a member of the Jazz. He and Kirk Snyder got into it after a Jazz loss in Dallas back in 2005. Stackhouse has a rep of getting into altercations with other teams as well.
Sounds like Andy (Hayward) will be heading back to Utah this weekend to start working out. CJ said the first part of September is when he would be back as well. I imagine that everyone else will be filing back in to town as well shortly. We're getting closer.
Deron Williams may very well end up leaving in a couple of years, but not for any of the reasons listed by this Dime post. Here's a list of the reasons given and my counter argument.
- Deron is upset with the situation in Utah. While Deron has been vocal about some of his friends being traded/not signed, mentioning that he signed a three-year deal for a reason, and talking about the Jazz not doing anything, he's come around on those issues. His comments about Dee Brown and Ronnie Brewer were made shortly after those decisions and could be considered being in the heat of the moment. He's also stated that he's very excited with the recent additions in Jefferson, Hayward, and Bell and thinks that this team could be better than last season's team.
- The Jazz still have no title since he re-signed. Well, 28 other teams have no title in the same time period. They've also been taken out by the Lakers three straight times, the two-time champions and one-time runner-up. ]
- Losing Korver, Boozer, and Brewer has taken his heart out of it. - So he's saying that Deron won't have the same fire he's had before because those three aren't here anymore? That couldn't be further from the truth. His statement to Big Al that he's going to make him an All-star and the talk about the Jazz being better this year wipes out this argument.
- When Deron played in the All-star game in Dallas, it was the happiest he's looked in two years. - Come on, he would have been happy to be playing the All-star game in Yellowknife, Canada. He had just been snubbed for 2-3 years. Being in Dallas was icing on the cake.
- Dallas has substantial cap room in 2012 - Guess who else has cap room in 2012? Utah. Not that it matters anymore, but guess who can give him the most money? Utah. Guess who might not have cap room in 2012 because your owner is Mark Cuban?
- He'll have a better supporting cast in Dallas - The Jazz have Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, Raja Bell, and Gordon Hayward on the books for 2012-13. The Mavs have Dirk, Shawn Marion, Brendan Haywood, Roddy, and Dominque Jones. The average age of those first three will be about 33. Even if the ages were the same, is that a lineup that would be enough to pull Deron to Dallas?
Second, we have no idea what teams/contracts will look like after the new CBA.
HoopsHype is reporting that free agent Francicso Elson is leaning towards signing with the Jazz,
If you're like me, I'm sure you said, "Fransicwho?" He's a journeyman right now with unimpressive numbers for a big man. He's a 34-year old 7-footer who doesn't score much nor blocks many shots.
There will be rumors like this that float around, but if they were to sign him, wouldn't that have an impact on Fesenko and Jeremy Evans?
Open-ended Wednesday poll... Who is the team's most-improved for next season?
The Downbeat - 31 August 2010 - #305 - The Fresh Water Edition
by Basketball John on Aug 31, 2010 9:30 AM MDT
in The Downbeat
22 comments
Hat tip to Salt City Hoops for catching this, but it looks like the new floor for the ESA looks like this:
As some wisely pointed out before, we could see the green paint and two-tone wood floor from the NBA2K11 screen shots posted earlier. It looks like we will be getting the new logo for center court. I thought I had read that it was still going to be the mountain logo because it had to be the primary logo on the court.
I'm a fan though. My hope in all of the jersey/color/floor changes is that they leave it as is and don't change things again down the road. There's something to be said about teams that have had the same jersey/logo since their inception.
Another question is why haven't they unveiled the new court yet? It was supposed to be done a couple of months ago on draft night but then got put off. We have yet to hear anything on when it will be unveiled officially.
Thanks to moni for this link. In moni's words, it's "AK either launching new shoe or starring in community production of Cinderella,"
It's all in Russian (where Google Video Translate when you need it?). My biggest question is did they purposely use Eye of the Tiger as the intro music? Really?
Anyone that can translate?
I don't know what to think of this video of Stockton highlights (via SLAM). Behind the back passing? Alley-oops? A freaking spin move? Worlds colliding.
John Stockton - The Ultimate Point Guard (via memoismoney)
Gordon Hayward with the question of our time,
If you want to start a fake Hayward twitter account, there's your idea: Deep thoughts by G Hayward. Other questions you might ask: Why can't snow be warm? Why can't vegetables taste like chocolate? Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?
Tuesday poll,
The Downbeat - 30 August 2010 - #304 - The End Of Summer Edition
by Basketball John on Aug 30, 2010 9:16 AM MDT
in The Downbeat
31 comments
Kelly Dwyer finishes up his pre-season player rankings with the centers. He puts Big Al at #10 due in part to having to learn the flex offense,
Well, he's healthy, but there's concern that he could need a little while to figure out Utah's flex offense and that could limit his contributions while players like Paul Millsap streak to the correct place on the court.
He's ranked right behind Marc Gasol, Nene, and Noah. I would definitely take Al ahead of Nene right now if we're talking about who's going to have a better season. I'll bet that he picks up the flex a lot quicker than expected.
So if you're keeping track at home, Deron Williams was listed as #2, didn't get a shooting guard listed in the top 30, AK at #9 for small forwards, Memo at #30 and Millsap at #17 for power forwards.
Of course I bullish on all of those spots.
Kurt Helin talks about the free agents next season possibly trying to get extensions before the current CBA runs out on June 30th next year,
Heck, Caron Butler, Shane Battier, Zach Randolph, Samuel Dalembert, Jason Richardson, Tony Parker, even Andrei Kirilenko might be wise to also adopt the why-wait approach, provided their teams will have them.
I know most here, if not all, would be jumping up and down at an extension for AK. I think it makes sense for both parties to get something done.
From the Jazz point of view, AK's biggest non-basketball value comes from his $18M expiring contract. I don't think it has the value it would have had had it been expiring last season. There aren't a lot of marquee free agents next season. Certainly nobody is trying to cut their roster to just a couple of players so that they can give out three near-max contracts.
At this point, I think his basketball skills and in particular his role in the Jazz offense/defense, are worth a lot more than what he could bring back in a trade. Looking at who the Jazz could get back for AK in a trade, and whether it would help the team or not, is something to discuss in a longer post.
From AK's standpoint, he's never been a true FA. He could test the market and see what teams offer him. On the other hand, we just don't know what the new CBA will bring as far as salary restrictions so he could possibly get more money under the current CBA. With as much as AK has made over his career, he doesn't have to worry about how much his next salary will be. He'll play where he fits in best and I think that's right here in Utah.
If you frequent other SBN sites (and you should, they're all really good), you might have noticed a fan confidence poll in the upper-left hand corner of the sites. Well, that's been rolled out to all sites now.
It's a weekly confidence poll that will show the previous rankings as the year goes on. It will reset on Mondays with the new results showing up two days later. So just drag the slider, click vote, and check back Wednesday.
NBA Playbook breaks down some post moves from Ante Tomic in the USA/Croatia game (he had 12 & 8). I'm impressed with how he can back a player down and finish with either hand. This comment comes from someone who said that Tomic would never see any time in the NBA when the Jazz originally drafted him. Here's a recent highlight video,
Monday poll,
The Downbeat - 27 August 2010 - #303 - The Michael J Edition
by Basketball John on Aug 27, 2010 5:00 AM MDT
in The Downbeat
19 comments
How did each of the Jazz players end up with Utah? Wynn from CanisHoopus has put together charts of every player and how they came to the team whether they were signed, traded, etc. It also shows the the picks and players traded to acquire each player. Fantastic stuff.
This is a link to the current Utah page but make sure to check the main page in the future because the links could change.
Karl drops 50 on Seattle at the tender age of 37 (via Dime),
Forget about jerseys, the new team and new unis will get me to buy a NBA video game when it comes out for the first time ever. I'm usually at least 2-3 three versions behind. Thanks to Jazzfanz for finding these,
via Operation Sports
Does anyone want to get in on an online league? Of course, if you buy 2K11, which I'm leaning towards, you have to take out the Jordan cover and replace it with Stockton and Malone.
However, for the jerseys, they have the customizable ones in now. And apparently you can still get a Matt Harpring one,
Maybe they know something we don't know?
via lp.imageg.net
I'm not a sneakerhead by any stretch though I do like to buy basketball and running shoes. These though, might not be topped. It looks like NIKE has patented the self-tying sneakers from Back to the Future II. These would be hard to pass up.
In other Michael J Fox news, it's also the 25th anniversary of Teen Wolf. Love that movie. They caught up with his stunt double from that film (h/t Kyle, Truth About It),
Glosser's one regret, when he thinks back to the impact 'Teen Wolf' had on his life, is that he lost touch with Michael J. Fox somewhere along the way. "He was a great guy," he says. "For five or six years after the movie, I'd go see him a couple times a year on the set of 'Family Ties.' Then I moved out of L.A., and he moved back east, and I lost contact with him. But we got along well.
There's a lot you could pick at in the movie, but I love it. Why does Mick get to stand under the basket when Scott is taking his FT attempts? Why does Mick get to clothesline Scott multiple times? Why did the guy in the stands at the end of the game have his pants unzipped?
Friday open poll... Who gets the most Ts this season?
The Downbeat - 26 August 2010 - #302 - The Gin & Juice Edition
by Basketball John on Aug 26, 2010 8:29 AM MDT
in The Downbeat
23 comments
Paul Millsap comes in at #17 on Kelly Dwyer's rankings for PFs this coming season,
Why does Paul drop four spots despite the absence of Carlos Boozer(notes) in the Utah lineup?
Well, though he has the talent for it, Paul's not going to just step in and start handing out 20 and 10s.
You could make a good case for Sap to have a better season that the guys 13-16. He's just behind Antawn Jamison, Carl Landry, Luis Scola, and Troy Murphy.
Except for Jamison, the rest of those players made jumps in his rankings from last season. He doesn't think that Paul will be putting up 20 & 10, and he won't, but he also takes the month of March for Scola when he put up 20 & 10 into why he ranked him higher. He admits though that he doesn't think he'll get that many minutes and touches. With Yao looking like he'll be back, he's not going to average that for a season.
Hoops World is stating that Fesenko could have got about a 3-year, $9M deal on the open market had he been an unrestricted free agent. The only reason he didn't was that the Jazz had told teams that they would likely match.
$3M a year seems pretty steep for a player that has yet to prove that he can be consistent. Big men will always be at a premium, but I don't know if the Jazz match that amount.
Maybe there's something behind signing character players. The Nuggets continue their tumultuous off-season with J.R. Smith trying to choke a player he was playing a pickup game with. According to other stories about the incident, the other player involved was DLeague player who's never seen NBA action.
There wasn't enough to press charges but I wonder if the league will still investigate. Smith is on the last year of his deal worth about $6M.
This could end up being an ugly, ugly season in Denver.
Snoop was in the SLC last night,
Bigger pic on Twitpic
He's also wore DWill's jersey
Thursday poll,
The Downbeat - 25 August 2010 - #301 - The They're Not Booze Edition
by Basketball John on Aug 25, 2010 10:04 AM MDT
in The Downbeat
51 comments
Carlos Boozer on why he left Utah (from DIME),
Dime: Why was now the best time to leave Utah?
CB: Ah, I was a free agent number one (laughs). And number two, obviously I grew up (as a player) in Utah and had a great time out there with Coach (Jerry) Sloanand with my teammates. I definitely miss a lot of things about Utah - and I had great teammates and coaches, and the city embraced me - so it was great to be a part of it. But at this time, this was the best opportunity for me this summer and I look forward to it.
I'm not blaming him but cash was still the biggest factor. Of course I don't expect him to bring that up in an interview like this. How come it's my worst fear that he'll have a huge, huge season in Chicago? It's like the breaking up with a girlfriend analogy.
Of course he won't be able to claim the boos at the ESA this season will be calls of Booze. Is there something else that could be said instead of booing? Too bad you couldn't orchestrate a mass silence or something of that nature. Then you could have one Jazz fan scream a single insult.
I never knew Phil Johnson the head coach. He's filled in at times for Sloan due to illness, ejections, etc. He's likely to be handed the job when Jerry leaves, if he wants it. I'm not alone in assuming though that he'll step down when Sloan does, whenever that may be.
NBA.com has an interesting piece on the assistant coaches in the league that used to be head coaches. Maybe a little surprisingly, none of them has an overall winning percentage greater than .500 as a head coach. The reason they're not a head coach still is because of that very reason but you would have to assume that at least a few of them would have had an overall winning record.
Phil proceeded Jerry of course as the coach of the Bulls. Before that, his turnaround of the Kansas City Kings earned him a COY award.
I don't have a doubt that if Johnson was to become the head coach, he would do well with the team but maybe there's something to be an assistant coach. Like the article mentions, there's a lot less crap you have to deal with as an assistant compared to being the guy. Had Johnson wanted to be a head coach again, he probably could have landed a spot somewhere else by now.
We'll likely see dual retirements the day Sloan calls it a day.
We'll be tweaking the logo a bit for the SLC to stand out some more. I drew up these though. Not saying we're switching the site logo, but for t-shirts and the like they might work better. Any thoughts on them?
It looks like the Jazz are going to be doing some more mobile promotions for people at the game and at home. You'll have the typical polls/trivia stuff but they'll also be putting pictures and texts on the big screen. You can see some demos from txtstation's website.
Here's the Jazz's VP of Sales & Marketing, Jim Olson's take,
We chose Txtstation because they understand that interactivity is paramount to game-day entertainment. This is also a great way to build our database and activate our sponsors
That will be the biggest reason for this. It's another revenue stream for the team as they attach a sponsor to this. That's not a bad thing. More money=better players, hopefully. They have to pay for those renovations at the ESA somehow.
I imagine you'd still be able to text pics and text from home even though you're not at the game. Though things are sure to be carefully screened, there's one thing we've learned from the Internet, and that is that people like to see what they can slip by the screeners/censors.
Wednesday poll,
The Downbeat - 24 August 2010 - #300 - The Madness! Edition
by Basketball John on Aug 24, 2010 9:53 AM MDT
in The Downbeat
14 comments
I admit that when the Jazz picked Hayward, there was a fit of rage. I don't think there were many Jazz fans who were excited about that pick. It was, at the time, a bit of a letdown. But in summer league, he's let his play do the talking, something he's had to do his whole career,
I understand that people who haven't seen me play very much might have their doubts or their questions. But hopefully when they see how I can fit into a team and make the most out of that situation, they'll come to understand what I'm about.
He'll become a solid contributor this season, something we'll desperately need on the team with shooters (or makers as Sloan would say) being a bit of a rarity.
After not getting a shooting guard listed in Kelly Dwyer's top 30 SGs and not seeing a Jazz man listed in his first twenty SFs, I thought he was going to leave them off the list again.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to see him put AK at #9,
Sure, those 5X5 days have passed, but Kirilenko runs things on a level that doesn't lend itself to too many big stats these days. He's got a little Bobby Gross in him now, setting screens, making entry passes or setting up the big man at the high post who will then toss the assist that makes it to the box score. Along with 12 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 2.6 combined blocks/steals in only 29 minutes a game.
Please stay healthy this season.
Speaking of 300, can we get the SLC Dunk Fan Page on Facebook to 300 by the end of the day? We stand at 230 right now. Like and share, like and share.
Fesenko caption contest (if you'd like to vote on captions, click Actions/Recommend under the post),
via Facebook
Tuesday poll,
Showing 1 - 8 of 264 Older
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
