Downbeat #1962: The World welcomes Joe and Renae Ingles’ twins!

The Utah Jazz family keeps growing, now with the Ingles twins saying hello to the world from down under. We look over the Olympic rosters and speculate on which teams are going to move on. We ask you all to make tough decisions. All this plus Dunks, Dunks, Dunks, and Dunks!

Since John Stockton and Karl Malone hung it up how have the Jazz fared? Well, they made the playoffs with one core (Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, Ronnie Brewer, Matt Harpring, Kyle Korver) and once advanced to the Western Conference Finals; and then had a second core make the playoffs and quickly leave it without much noise (Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, Devin Harris, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors). Overall in the regular season the Utah Jazz have gone 536-514, for a winning percentage of 51.05%. That’s almost objectively and mathematically “not half bad.”

When you chart the data from season to season you get this:

It’s basically a mountain range shrugging. Which sadly is the best way to look at what our franchise has done over the last 13 seasons.

Two more Utah Jazz babies in the house! Joe Ingles and wife Renae are now proud parents!

Just so we’re keeping score at home, Ingles is now the SECOND player on the team to have twins (after Derrick Favors); which is completely different to how the Jazz have two players on the team who themselves are twins in Gordon Hayward and Dante Exum.

And as Joe Daddy (Who’s your daddy?) hints at, now it’s time to focus on the Olympics.

OLYMPICS!!! OLYMPICS IS NIGH!!! REPENT ALL SE SINNERS!

Okay, maybe not but let’s get at it. There are two groups (A and B), and four teams out of the six from each group make it to the knockout rounds. Let’s check out the rosters.

Group A:

Clearly, the United States should win every game. France should be perfectly fine, and Serbia is battle tested. That leaves one spot up for grabs between Australia, China, and Venezuela. The game to watch will be between China and their length (four seven footers) against Venezuela’s tenacity (three guys under six feet). There’s only one Commonwealth nation here, the Boomers, so I am obliged to root for them. I hope they destroy Venezuela. (They beat Canada by one point and prevented them from being in the Olympics.)

Group B:

For some reason, I don’t have the most accurate roster info here, as some teams are still being listed for larger than 12 man rosters right now according to Wikipedia. Regardless, if Pau Gasol is suiting up for Spain they should roll with their star and depth. They have a lot of present and past NBA experience on their roster. Argentina and Lithuania are two more Top 5 FIBA Teams in this bracket. So I honestly think only the fourth place spot is going to be worth fighting for. I don’t think Nigeria have the fundamentals and point guard play to hang with the rest, so it should be up to the hosts from Brazil against the Ante Tomic -less Croatians. My prediction will be Croatia, despite Brazil playing at home.

Which eight teams do you think will go on to the next round?

Let’s check out some dunks from the only Utah Jazz player to win the Rookie of the Year Award, Darrell Griffith:

I guess these are great “in-game” dunks today, and they don’t have a lot of props. I miss dunk contests like this — the degree of difficulty is lower, but these guys are throwing it down on their first attempts or not at all.

Personally, I’d like to see Alec Burks in a dunk contest, but he’d probably miss his best ones, or somehow fall incorrectly. I guess the only other guy who would be worth watching would be George Hill. Man, I do miss Jeremy Evans. (Oh wait! If he makes the team, my money is on Joel Bolomboy!)

If you had to pick one, which would you go for?

• 2016-2017 Northwest Division banner

or

• 2017 Playoffs second round exit because of a sweep

(People who have done a few practice LSATs will see something here, and should go for the jugular.)