Breakfast Discussion

Injuries. Jazz-men have them. Broken finger, check. Bone contusion, check. Mysterious illness, check. Sprain that lasts beyond fandom’s patience, check. Seems like the injury bug is plaguing the team more than normal for this time of year (at least by my unscientific analysis.)

SLC Dunkers have some theories for this:

• It’s the training staff - ever since Gary Briggs retired at the end of the 2014-15 season, players haven’t been able to stay healthy as the new training staff doesn’t know how to keep players healthy
• It’s the training staff (part deux) - Gary Briggs used to tell players to rub some dirt on it (i.e. mentally getting players to toughen up); whereas the new training staff are flower children (see hippies in Webster’s dictionary) who let players be themselves and decide if they are up for playing in a particular game
• Dennis Lindsey made a pact with the Devil - this one states that Dennis Lindsey sold the Jazz’s cumulative team soul to Beelzebub in exchange for being able to draft Rudy, Exum, Hood, (insert favorite player here)

I have my own theories to float; these include:

• Cute nurse
• Regression to the mean
• Players aren’t made like they used to be
• Player conditioning is poor
• Style of play

The cute nurse theory goes like this-

Player A gets injured and is sent to the nurse’s office. Player A decides that the nurse is good looking and tells his teammates. Player B then self-inflicts an injury to go see the nurse and returns with a similar story for his teammates. This process is then repeated. Can this happen? Yes, and I am pretty sure this happened to one of the scout troops I led to summer camp as one of our troop members beaned his brother with a rock and that young man was sent to the nurse for concussion-like symptoms. The young man returned and then for the next three days we had young men rotating in and out of the nurse’s office.

The theory of regression to the mean is as follows-

John Stockton and Karl Malone never got injured for several thousand years. Since there is some eternal law that players on a team have to be injured “X” number of times to keep the universe in harmony, we are just experiencing a regression to the mean. Enjoy the next several thousand years Jazz fans!

Players aren’t made like they used to be theory states-

Players raised in the 1700’s ate steel for breakfast, wrestled bears, and pooped coal. Players in the 21st century eat Cap’n Crunch for breakfast, wrestle with emotions, and poop granola. Consequently, players raised in the conditions of the 1700’s are less breakable than the players of today.

Theory of poor player conditioning says-

In the old days, players would train with Karl Malone. Karl would whip them into shape by hooking them up to a plow and having them till 100 acres of land in one day. After training with Karl, players would be conditioned to play a full 82 games injury free. Today’s players just sit over the summer, play video games, and eat bon bons. This type of training makes them soft and, therefore, they break easily.

Style of play theory-

This theory says that today’s players are more athletic and faster than the players of 200 years ago and, thus, are more prone to injury than said players of yesteryear.

Since I am speculating and know nothing about what it takes to be a professional basketball player, I can’t pinpoint what the precise cause of our rash of injuries is, but I am pretty sure one or a mixture of the theories above explain what has happened this year.

On the bright side, I have yet to hear the words “gastric distress” this year.

Worst Analogy

To win week 6 of the worst analogy championship belt, you will need to provide an analogy of the short clip “George Lucas in Love”. Good luck Dunkers!

Last week’s winner was 15,806 assists, not because he was the only one to provide an analogy for the week, but because he beautifully depicted the Jazz as Kryptonite, the Jazz bear as Batman, the Golden State Warriors as Superman, and the Lakers to Lex Luthor. Job well done! 15,806 assists in on his way to a worst analogy championship belt dynasty.

Cap Space

Last week I included a tweet from Bill Oram linking to an article that explained the Trump phenomenon the best I’ve seen. Unfortunately, at least one Dunker had the link blocked at worked because it was “tasteless”. I apologize to that person since it was not my intent to get your rights to the internet taken away and a notation made in your employee file about being “tasteless”. If anyone else had this experience, you have my profound apologies.

Hopefully, this week’s cap space will keep you out of trouble. I am just going to put this here:

Let’s continue to weather the storm as there are good things waiting for us when we get all the pieces back together!