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The Downbeat #1284 - The Random Assortment Edition

By Dustin LaMarr
Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports

If you believe building through the draft is the best option for the Jazz, tonight is a big night. Jump over to Amar's WYWS for last night for a rundown of last night's games. Here's what's on tap tonight:

Bucks @ Sixers

Mavericks @ Knicks

Celtics @ Jazz

Plus the Pelicans and Pistons (23 wins each) are both playing.

All in all, its going to be a rough night of hoops.

For those that are interested, keep an eye out for the WYWS for the rest of the year.

This weekend there was a big college hoops game as Syracuse and Duke went head to head. I'm sure that many of you watched it (big game, Jabari, Duke fan, Syracuse fan, boring Saturday night, Jabari, etc). The play at the end of the game (that has sparked a fantastic new meme) was refreshing to see.

It would be nice if NBA refs had the stones to make that call. Yes, it would probably cost everyone's team a frustrating loss, but it's the right thing to do. Further, it's good to see those calls, that normally go unpunished in college hoops, get made. The NCAA's new rules on fouling are more inline with the NBA's and have made what were often unwatchable games more entertaining.

In other "everyone has known about this for 3 weeks and I swear he was already given the award, but they gave him an award at the game on Saturday night" news, Trey Burke was named Kia Western Conference Rookie of the Month for January.

Trey-award_medium

via jazzfanatical.files.wordpress.com (courtesy of Moni)

At least the guy didn't drop it....

This morning in The Hook, SBN's Tom Ziller writes about the state of competitive balance after the lockout and the new CBA. Whether you agree with the politics of the lockout, or not, the information he has is interesting. In short, it has decreased.

Go and take a look for yourself (The Hook should be on your morning "must read" list), but there's one thing that I think Ziller doesn't take into account: The lack of parity between conferences. I think the data is skewed because of the huge gap in talent between the Eastern Conference "Have's" (Pacers, Heat, Bulls for a few years, etc) and the perennial losers in that conference. My theory is that gap is causing a lopsided amount of wins in the EC that is skewing the data and if the study was conducted more in depth a weighted win/loss system would give a more clear picture.

Because this popped up on my Twitter feed and its relevant to the tanking in the NBA:

Is Favors malingering?

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