In case you missed it, here is an interview between Gordon Hayward and Tom Kirkland's hair via KSL's Sportsbeat Sunday. There is a lot of good info in here, including Gordon admitting that playing the small forward position can be frustrating, but there is one line in the interview that made it worthy of the first bullet point in today's downbeat.
Tom Kirkland: "Is there any doubt?"
Gordon Hayward: "There's no doubt. Not from me."
You'll have to watch the video to see what Hayward was talking about.
#WEAREUTAH JAZZ #BELIEFISSTRONGERTHANREALITY
I think Utah Jazz fans can be the greatest fans in the NBA. One of the reasons we are the greatest is because we support this team through thick and thin. In the last 10 years, we have consistently been in the top 6 most attended arenas. Even the year after Stockton and Malone left and the team was predicted to be historically bad, average attendance only went down a couple hundred people per game. But correct me if I am wrong, but this year I have seen a lot of this:
Those would be empty seats in the background. Sure it's the Cavs, but I swear, everytime they show the start of a game on TV, I see a lot of empty seats. Maybe it is just due to late-comers. Per basketball-reference, the Jazz are averaging 19,258 people per home game this season, which is essentially, to about 97% capacity. I know sometimes they count tickets sold and not people who have attended. Someone with more knowledge on the situation, help me out. At least the people at the games have been great, thus far, so keep that up.
To me, it's never too early to talk strategy on acquiring the pick from Golden State this year. As you may know, the Warriors need to finish with the 8th pick or lower (meaning 8-30) for the Jazz to take it over. If the Warriors finish with the 8th worst record, but find themselves in the top 3 due to the way the balls bounce, the Warriors will also keep their pick, just to be clear. The Warriors are currently the 7th worst team in the league, and if I were a Jazz fan, which I am, I would be rooting for the Warriors to win some games right now. If they are out of playoff contention in 2 months, you can bet they will shut it down in hopes of keeping their pick. So we need them to be competitive for awhile.
"WE BELIEVE...IN MEDIOCRITY"
Last night the Warriors held a 16 point lead over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies going into the 4th quarter and found a way to blow the game. When the Warriors were down 3, with 22 seconds left in the game, Golden State coach Mark Jackson used all of his vast basketball knowledge to come up with, and stop me if you have heard it before, an isolation play for Monta Ellis. He missed the 3 pointer. By my count, that makes Ellis 0-3 in isolation plays to win or tie the game. You remember what happened when the Jazz played in Golden State earlier this year.
In 2007 the Warrior fans all wore T-Shirts that said "We Believe" on them. As Jazz fans, we need to buy some of those t-shirts and add "in 23rd place" to them.
I can't say enough about what a great job Tyrone Corbin and the coaching staff have done this year. Jazz play by play man David Locke tries to put his finger on the personality of the team in his blog, but what I found interesting is the differences that Coach Corbin is instilling as opposed to the legend Jerry Sloan. The team appears to be more free to voice ideas and concerns. Other reports have mentioned that the team uses Ipads and other non-Sloan devices to watch gametape, break down film and learn plays. Coach Corbin couldn't have started his coaching career much worse than last year, but on the flipside, this season couldn't be going much better thus far. It feels like Coach Corbin is keeping the great things Coach Sloan did, while implementing some small improvements as well.
Congrats to Shiner Bock, who correctly guessed the answer to yesterday's trivia question. The answer was "Jazz players who recorded a regular season triple double while Jazzmen." As noted John Stockton recorded a triple double, but his was in the playoffs against the Mavericks. Jeff Hornacek and Tom Chambers also recorded triple doubles, but did so while with the Suns. Donyell Marshall was closer to getting a triple double with the Jazz than Deron Williams ever was. Thought that was interesting. Matt Harpring was never close, because he never passed the ball. Kidding, Matt.
Shiner Bock, if you find my email at the bottom of the site and want to email me your name and address, I have a couple of prizes you can choose from. Also, I will limit winners to one win a week, so Shiner, take this next one off.
Today's trivia question is this:
What is uniquely common about these three Jazmen?
Daryl Dawkins, Darrell Griffith, Theodore Edwards.