Breakfast Discussion

NFL brought us deflategate, but someone smarter than I asked the question whether ball tampering happens in the NBA and, if so, is there any data to show it?

Turns out Phil Jackass has admitted to doing just that:

"We'd try to take some air out of the ball. You see, on the ball it says something like 'inflate to 7 to 9 pounds.' We'd all carry pins and take the air out to deaden the ball.

It also helped our offense because we were a team that liked to pass the ball without dribbling it, so it didn't matter how much air was in the ball. It also kept other teams from running on us because when they'd dribble the ball, it wouldn't come up so fast."

There are also some allegations about our own Jazz:

Some teams in late 90s early 2000s also inflated or deflated the ball. See Jerry Sloan Utah.

Jazz rarely took 3 pointers or long shots, preferred banging inside, often used over inflated ball vs jump shooting teams.

Who knows if this is actually true, but the data does suggest the ball bounces higher in Utah.

With that, here is “Bouncy Ball”, one of those bad lip reading YouTube videos:

Worst Analogy

Last week’s Worst Analogy Championship Belt goes to me for showing John Stockton was untouchable for his records in assists and steals. Yes, I am calling my own number - no, there is no conflict of interest because of I am the judge; no, I will not divest myself of the Friday for the Weekend duties. Moving on...

This week’s WACB clip is from the natural. Let’s see what you can come up with.

Cap Space

Some of you may have noticed that this is episode 014 and that last week’s episode was 012. No, you didn’t miss an episode. I decided to skip number 013 due to many elevators not having a 13th floor. Apparently there is something called triskaidekaphobia (a severe fear of the number 13).

The Utah Jazz apparently have no such fear as the number is available to be worn and has been worn by the following players:

John Amaechi

Mark Jackass

Keon Clark

Mehmet Okur

Elijah Millsap

The Jazz have had players wear jersey numbers ranging from 00 to 55, and while number 13 has been worn, the numbers 1, 28, 29, 36, 37, 38, 46, 48, and 49 have never been used. Most of those are in the lower range of numbers; I do find it odd that the number 1 has been skipped. Maybe there is a superstition about the number 1 that I’m not aware of.

The uniform number that has been worn the most is the number 22 with such stalwarts as Stu Lantz (1975), Nate Williams (1975-1978), Bernard King (1980), Carl Nicks (1982), John Drew (1984-1985), Carey Scurry (1986-1988), Eric White (1989), Henry James (1993), Dave Jamerson (1994), Brooks Thompson (1997), John Crotty (2001), Curtis Borchardt (2004-2005), Lou Amundson (2007), Morris Almond (2008-2009), Malcolm Thomas (2014), Jerrelle Benimon (2015), and J.J. O’Brien (2016). Of that group, it looks like Nate Williams wore it for the longest period of time, and it looks like he stole it from Stu.

In four seasons with the Jazz, Nate played in 222 games shot .457 from the field and averaged 12.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, 1.4 assists, and 1.1 steals.