Andrew Bogut supports Dante Exum: Downbeat #1461

Thank the Basketball Gods that August is almost over. That lasted like two months. Ugh.

I'm so glad that training camp will begin with the next non-weekend DB.

The Jazz have a thing called #ThrowbackThursday, and to my great amusement the latest was last season's win against Orlando (Trey's big 3).

I think Peter is running in circles screaming to himself right now.

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Why is Peter acting like freaking out Picard? The answer follows:

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It's okay, Peter. We got Dante anyway. It's okay

But let's put that behind us all. Everyone stand up, join hands, look to the sky and chant with me: "May we have many more big, dramatic wins this year than we did last year."

Thanks. You may all be seated.

I'm bringing it up late, but the recent FIBA World Cup reminded me of changes I'd love to see in the NBA.

1. FIBA goaltending rules. True Hoops already brought up the aesthetic reasons, but for me there's also practical ones. Right now refs, 10 feet below and several feet away (creating all sorts of varying angles with which to judge the action) are expected to determine whether a basketball is located in an imaginary cylinder extending from the hoop to the ceiling of the arena? Come on.

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I want the refs to pull out some scopes and protractors to get the precise multi-angle readings necessary to accurately make this call. Just do the FIBA: once it hits the rim, it's fair game.

2. FIBA timeouts. I love a game with good flow, and the end of game timeout fetish drives me bananas. So cut the timeouts and cut coaches ability to stop the game over and over. And by the way, Dennis Lindsey agrees with me.

3. NBA refs make a blacklist of notorious floppers and simply refuse to call offensive fouls for their benefit. Ever. No matter if it really was an offensive foul or not. Just stare and smile at them while they flail themselves to the ground like drunken ostriches. And then keep running totals of the points cost by the flopping around on the floor instead of actually defending. This would cure the problem.

4. Fewer fouls. No instant replay. Fewer timeouts (I already said this, but still). I am much more interested in a fast-paced game with good flow than obsession over every call.

Andrew Bogut has long been one of my favorite dudes in basketball. His sophomore season was the last hurrah of the Great Utes Run from about 1990-2005. He helped us all remember that a C who plays defense well and gets his kicks from behind-the-back passes is pretty fun to watch.

And now he's volunteered to Captain the Dante Exum fan club. In an interview with Simon Legg at NBA Australia, Bogut had this to say about Exum's naysayers:

A lot of people out there that have started to get after [Exum] because he didn’t play much at the World Cup need to pull their heads out ...

I think we can all agree that the best part of this quote is that Bogut never actually said what thing/device/location people have tragically placed their heads, thus causing the struggle to pull them out.

Suggestions and ideas in the comments are encouraged. But keep it appropriate (I feel like I'm lecturing my 5th grade students now. Sorry. But keep it apporpriate.)

While I don't Jeterate him, I don't call him one of the greatest leaders of the Modern World, I have to say it's pretty neat that Derek Jeter got a walk-off RBI single in his last game at Yankee Stadium. Seriously ... it was Jeter's signature hit (opposite field single) to win the game. It was just one of those things that every fan should just smile and say: that was pretty cool.

In a weird way, it reminded me of the last game of Stockton and Malone together and the spontaneous standing ovation from the Kings fans as they walked off. Not the dream scenario (losing the playoff series), but still pretty special.

It's a pretty rare thing for an all-time great to spend his entire career with one team, and we were pretty lucky for it to happen to us.

It also made me wonder who of our guys now you hope could give us fans a moment like this 15-20 years from now. For me, Derrick Favors is that guy ... I'm going to conveniently pretend the first 4 months of his career never happened.