SLC Dunk -- Best Posts of the Off-Season Part 1

Here at SLC Dunk we've had a pretty crazy 2012 so far -- almost as crazy as the Utah Jazz. The lockout shortened season came as a surprise to me because I did not expect that the greedy NBA owners and greedy NBA players would get it together. They did. And boom, before you knew it the season was starting.

Then shortly after Basketball John stepped down.

And in his place you've had a steady dose of Clark, Moni, Yucca, Diana, Dustin, Andy, and others. While the Jazz fought tooth and nail to the make the playoffs, we were at SLC Dunk fought hard to not only provide you (and us) with the best Utah Jazz coverage we could as fans -- we also tried to make this a very legit blog on its' own. We don't have the large fanbase that the Los Angeles Lakers have, the topical curiosity that some people would have for the Oklahoma City Thunder possess. Heck, we're far from the draw of the Miami Heat - and EVERYONE wants to read about them.

We're a small blog for a small market team, but our fans really love our team. And we do too. So we wanted to make it the best we could.

The Jazz were bounced early from the playoffs, and the NBA draft happened on June 28th. Shortly after in early July the Jazz made all their off-season moves via trades, signings, and drafts. Yet we were at SLC Dunk have managed 348 posts so far in Q3. That's 348 posts in 92 days, and in reality, this month isn't over yet. There were about 350 posts during the most boring time of the season, when basketball interest was at its' lowest.

And as a result . . . you may have missed some really cool posts. As a result, I'm going to try to organize them here for people to catch up with. This post will be updated accordingly!

Check that. I'm going to release a two week section of the off-season in each post, and I'll just put this all in a "Hub". I was also thinking of giving a directors commentary for each post I pick for this . . . but that would take way too long. I will say that the first two weeks of June got us a lot of stuff to think about. I think we always get up for the NBA Draft, even in seasons where we only have the #47th pick. I'm sure there will be a lot of great draft posts in the next "Best Posts of the Off-Season" post as it will be nearer to the NBA Draft.

I loved the variety of these posts though, some were funny, some were statistics based. We get a rant from Diana, and even a historical look at Andrei Kirilenko -- and how crazy amazing his career has been when you look at the numbers.

The majority of the analytical stuff though looks at our offensive side of the ball. Telling to me was that when comparing our 1st option vs. all the other 1st options on playoff teams . . . our guy was below average. I don't care about how someone does vs. all the other 1st options, including bad players on bad teams. It's the desire to progress in the playoffs that I care about.

Lastly, I love the Guess the Game Score contest. Four of the five winners have responded to my recent e-mails and I've sent them out their prizes. Seriously -- if you won and you didn't get a prize yet, you know how to get at me on twitter, email, or here. If I don't hear from you soon, I will keep trying to contact you with your email addy. (No names being used here, ha ha, but I know who you are!)

Or as Diana put it, "Championship or Bust."