Jazz Guard Raja Bell takes a mini-Ceballos after Sixers game

After the Utah Jazz dropped a game to the Philadelphia 76ers some things went down. Things I am not privy to; however, the end result is that incumbent starting shooting guard Raja Bell did not play in the game the very next night against the Chicago Bulls. The easy answer to 'why' is because he was not there. He's not injured, but he was not with the team either. He left, and the situation remains "internal" for some reason.

Any man who clotheslines Kobe Bryant, and stands him up after he gassed up the helicopter is someone I will, at the very least, find some rooting interest in. Bell is the starter, and Tyrone Corbin is a guy who has been playing the veterans quite a bit this year. That said, it is becoming increasingly clear that Raja Bell isn't 26 years old anymore. He's not going to be the starting shooting guard for this team going forward. He's not the future. He's not quite the past either. But it would be ignorant to suggest that all parties involved (Head Coach Corbin, Raja Bell, and Jazz GM Kevin O'Connor) don't have to talk about this before anyone can really move forward.

It's not very professional to bail on your work responsibilities. If I just didn't do my job there would be some sort of penalty associated with it, even if I had problems with middle management. We'll see if Raja gets a slap on the wrist. Or not. This seems like a perfect time to apply being uniformly fair with your employees. If a young guy did this he would have been exiled to the Utah Flash -- and that NBA DL franchise doesn't even exist anymore. If a younger player did this back when Jerry Sloan was here he would have shot Kyrylo Fesenko dead with his own blunderbuss. (Even if it wasn't Fesenko who was acting up)

But a "veteran" ? We'll see what happens. My money is that the Jazz will try to keep this behind closed doors, and that Bell will not be visibly punished for his actions (he'll still start). I can't wait to hear what Private Investigator Karl Malone deduces about all of this in 14 months.