Bolomboy Signing with a Side of Karl Malone- Downbeat #1974

Welcome to being another week closer to Jazz basketball, in today's downbeat enjoy a healthy dose of Joel Bolomboy, Jazz Olympian Basketball Roundup, a Karl Malone sighitng, and more!

The Olympics are over!

How did our Jazz players do overall?

Boris Diaw led all of our players with 8 points per game (47th overall at Rio), 5 assists per game, and 4 rebounds per game.

Fellow Frenchman Rudy Gobert averaged 6 points, 7 rebounds and 2 blocks per game.

France got knocked out by Spain in the quarterfinals.

Raul Neto of Brazil averaged 5 points and 3 assists.

Brazil did not advance past group play.

Joe Ingles of Australia averaged 8 points, 3 assists, and 3 rebounds per game.

Australia lost in the bronze medal game to Spain and lost a heartbreaker in the semifinals to Serbia at the buzzer.

Which Jazz players will represent their country in 2020? Time will tell...

Nice work Olympians!

As Amar covered this weekend, the Jazz signed their 2nd round draft pick Joel Bolomboy of Weber State. Catch his piece here: Utah Jazz sign Joel Bolomboy

Now this does not mean he is guaranteed a roster spot, but it does not hurt his chances.

Check out the mixtape the Utah Jazz twitter account dropped recently:

@bolomboy21 averaged 17.1 points on 57.3% shooting and had 12.6 rebounds during his senior year at @WeberStateMBBhttps://t.co/AqRnmEzxjO

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) August 19, 2016

Have an urge to get to know even more about our 2nd round pick this year?

Check out this highlight reel as well as decide for yourself if you think he has a place on our squad this year, is better fit for the D-League for some time, or is better for somewhere else altogether:

All-time Utah Jazz great Karl Malone sighting!

All-time Utah Jazz great Karl Malone sighting!

A user on NBA Reddit ran into Karl Malone a few days ago and has this story to tell:

I've been down in South La for the past week helping with the flood efforts along with my brothers and sisters in the La National Guard.

Yesterday we had a break in the madness long enough to go get a good bite to eat in Baton Rouge. We chose Walk On's right beside LSU campus. If you've ever eaten there, you understand :)

Once we were seated, I recognized the Mailman almost instantly. Sitting about 15 feet away while having lunch with his son KJ, and 2 of his friends (all play football at LSU).

I pointed him out to my buddies and a couple knew him, and surprisingly a couple didn't! We agreed to leave him be and let him enjoy his meal without being bothered.

We ate and were getting ready to get our check when our waitress told us that our meal was taken care of! It's something that's never expected when in uniform, but I truly appreciate it when citizens feel the need to help take care of uniformed military. When it happens, I always ask if the person is still in the restaurant so I can personally thank them.

So I asked her exactly that.. All she did was grin and pointed behind me. I turned and there was Karl Malone, reaching for my hand saying how much he appreciates us. I'm not one to get starstruck, and this was no different. He was soft spoken and asked about each of our lives/families/jobs etc.. He was just Karl.

We all spoke for a few minutes and met his son, and the 2 other linemen for the Tigers. All were very respectful, and seemingly good kids.

Karl Malone lives roughly 40 miles away from me in North Louisiana. But here we were down in Baton Rouge finally meeting.

When he asked where I lived and what my hobbies were, we related on every level. When I said I pretty much just play golf and smoke cigars in my spare time.... His eyes LIT up.

"Oh, so you're a cigar guy are you?" To which I replied "yes sir! Since 2010 I've been hooked."

"Would you say that you're a cigar connoisseur?" He asked. "I definitely know my way around a humidor and can appreciate any and every stick in there.."

He put his hand on my shoulder and said "i want you to follow me out to my truck, I have a few things I'd like to give you." At this point I'm pretty excited at all of the possibilities! The guys I was with don't partake in cigars but were really excited as well.

We go out to his vehicle and he opens the back door, pulls out a mini briefcase-sized travel humi and hands it to me. "Open it!" He said. I obliged. The humi was 3 rows deep. All of the same cigars per row.. He told me to get one off of every row. I don't think I blinked the entire time!

Then he opened the front passenger door and pulled out a sealed box. He cracked it open and told me to take all I wanted..the instantly recognizable red label tempted me to grab several, but I held back and only got 1.

After that, he asked us all to take a group picture with him. Of course we did.

I'll let these two pictures end this post!

What an awesome day!

(Link: NBA Reddit)

Fun little story, cool to see how one of our best players of all time is still a humble nice person who has no problem making time for Regular Joes.

(also, read some of those comments in that NBA Reddit link if you want to read some more awesome Malone tidbits)

There is a meager 9 weeks left before the NBA regular season starts and only 7 weeks until the preseason!

The season the Jazz finally rise up the standings and hopefully get some notable playoff wins is on the horizon and I am more excited for this season than I have been for any season this decade!

Here's to hoping that we can build some actual momentum this season and help convince our core to stay together and/or attract future key players to this special team that has been brewing in the post-Sloan-era.

Speaking of Sloan, I leave you today with this piece of nostalgia-inducing video: