It’s been a bit of a slow summer for Jazz videos, but I was able to find this one from Dime Mag.  Boozer talks a bit about playing for the Jazz and mainly about the meaning behind his tatoos.  The best part of the whole thing is his Aunt’s ringing endorsement in the comment section of the article.

The awkward relationship of Jerry Sloan and Andrei Kirilenko is well-documented.  But it looks like in order to mend their fragile coach-player bond, the Utah Jazz coach and forward went on a summer vacation to Hawaii.  From an anonymous source, I was able to obtain exclusive video of the two bonding on the beaches of Hawaii:

It looks like they’re on their way to understanding each other through the international language of hula.  Let’s hope this translates to a resurgent AK for the 2007-08 season.

So after FIBA got its cut gave it’s blessing, a week after the team announced it had signed Fesenko, they Utah Jazz consummated the relationship with a press conference. Terms are never disclosed so how do we know he gets $750k the first year and $810k the next? Everyone finds out anyway, so why do they have this policy? One term not disclosed is that Fess receives a $1000 bonus each time Hot Rod or Booner mispronounce his name. And sadly, no car was included. That makes me wonder if LHM gave players a car, how much that would count against the salary cap. Seems like it would be a relatively cheap throw-in but would sweeten a deal. Could he get around this by giving the players a $1 lease per year? I’m not a CBA guru or student for that matter. And bloggers and MSM reporters rejoice with endless Fesenko quotes.

And now, I promise to put up something meaningful in the next bit. But until then, we have the following:

• Deron’s not going to get a lot of touches - When I was watching the USA pound on Chavez’s (dictator for life) Venezuelan team I noticed that Williams played a lot with Chaucey Billups. And since Williams isn’t going to get to shoot much, it kind of takes away from his strengths if he’s not running the point.
• Williams will be playing a lot of ball - Deron will probably be playing in many of the upcoming summers. How will this effect him for the NBA season? I don’t think it will matter too much for someone as young and that’s in good shape. Jimminy, I feel old calling him young. Also, if Boozer makes the team for the Olympics, who would get bumped? Chandler?
• Why is Chauncey Billups being picked over Deron? - Of course I’m biased, but I don’t know why Billups is #2 behind Kidd when it should be Deron. I think Chauncey is good player, but I’ll let Bill Simmons explain (#3).
• John Stockton hates Isiah Thomas - Wouldn’t he have to in order to fight a stress fracture to play in the Olympics? Of course it’s widely believed that Jordan and Malone didn’t want Thomas on the team. But for Stockton, I’d like to think his motivation was playing in the Olympics, the first time pros were allowed to compete. And I think the day of players doing something like this have come and gone. Most wouldn’t even go now if they had a hangnail. I don’t think that the world has caught up yet to USA players overall. There are countries that have very talented players, but the US should have twelve all-stars every year. I think that most players just don’t care enough. It’s been a long time since the Dream Team but I remember it was playing for something. I think this also is why the slam dunk contest sucks for the most part now. But with Kobe coming on board and other talk, I see a resurgence of USA pride.

Technorati tags: utah jazz, kyrylo Fesenko, deron williams, carlos boozer, john stockton, isiah thomas, team usa, nba

 The deal is finally done.  Kyrylo Fesenko has signed and is probably now on a plane to the Ukraine.  So what does this mean?  First, Hoffa is officially out.  I sure hope he gets on with another team.  Like his agent said, he just needs to get some minutes.  I guess they have to be earned somehow though.  Second, do the Jazz now have the best English-mangling-quote duo in the league with Fesenko and Kirilenko?  They ought to provide plenty of great stuff this year.  Take this one from Fesenko:

Right now, we have to do all the job from the beginning, from the zero.

And to commemorate the signing, I’m officially creating the Fesenko and Fesenko quotes tags.

And finally, his nickname has to be Fezz, not Fess, right?  I know he has the jewelry, but he can afford to get a new one now.

Rather than losing the position to Williams, Hinrich has withdrawn himself from the senior team for what’s being called personal reasons.  What this means obviously is that Deron should make the team.  It was likely that he would have made the team anyway, but the last spot was said to have been between him and Hinrich.

Practice resumes this Wednesday for the senior team.

More on this later.

• The Heat sign Fredo - He’s been playing pickup ball with Boozer. Let’s hope those knee injuries aren’t contagious.
• Maverick Malone? - On another slow NBA news day, a Dallas columnist starts pulling crap out of his butt by stating that the Mavs should lure Malone out of retirement. Here are his “reasons” (other than he had to have something to turn in):
• “You know Malone, even at 44 years old, would be by far the best back-to-the-basket player on the roster” - Please. If he’s your best at this, you’re already in trouble. And seeing as he’d be playing “low-minutes,” this isn’t going to help.
• “He’d definitely add a healthy dose of much-needed toughness” - Malone has more toughness in his goatee than the entire Mav team combined. If he were to try to pass on that toughness, Dirk would melt under the load.
• “Maybe it’d ease the pain of passing on him in the draft all those years ago.” - Maybe we could talk Wilkins & Drexler into coming to play some “significant but low-minutes.” What, you didn’t like the Deaf Shrimp guy? And if we’re talking about talking people of of retirement, Portland would like to put in their claim for Mike. And you’re also going to have to get in line for Malone behind Indiana (behind O’neil), LAC (with Brand out), or Golden State (heaven knows they need some toughness too). They also drafted ahead of Dallas that year. And nevermind that Malone is recruiting/conditioning for LA Tech.
• Although, a Boozer/Malone matchup would have a good master/student feel. Even though they never played together… or against each other really (I can’t back that up)… But it would make for good TV or at least numerous promos and hype.
• Everyone wants AK - Granted this is just a fan forum, but I think a lot of fans/columnists/other think they could get AK for trash. He’s not untouchable, but he’s not going for the likes of Head/Alston. As one commenter put it, “Exactly, not to mention this will never happen because we are in the same division. Thanks for playing.”
• Paul & Elijah Millsap don’t get a Thanksgiving. Mansap (this is his nickname, period. The paperboy or whatever else is out there doesn’t compare. Plus it’s needed for Mansap Crush) and his brother Elijah can’t hook up over the holidays and so they go at it over the summer. Maybe if Price doesn’t work out, we can draft the second Millsap. Side note: it took me a while, but I figured out Ms. Millsap. All of her boy’s names are Bible names; Paul, John, Elijah, and one more I can’t remember but I know it’s biblical (Google states that it’s Abraham). I see what you did there Bettye. Don’t think you slipped it past me.
• Millsap video of the day

Technorati tags: karl malone, utah jazz, carlos boozer, deron williams, andrei kirilenko, paul millsap

You’ll have to copy/paste the title for a translation, but thanks to PCA, he was able to find these Chinese paintings with AK, Boozer, Deron, and Memo superimposed on them.  These were all over last week on True Hoop and other places.  Apparently, they’re based on Outlaws of the Marsh, a classic Chinese novel about 108 outlaws.  Anyway, this website has photoshopped NBA players heads on to these paintings. 

The AK one is great with Sasha on his hat.  Perhaps in one of his hands he should have had a ticket for his free pass.  Deron is obviously holding the heads of Jacque Vaughn and Kirk Hinrich.  It would be interesting to find out if the players were put on specific paintings for a reason or if they were just random; what ever one fit the best.  Any Chinese translators out there?

I thought I’d mess around with some wallpapers.  Thanks to this cool tool, you can put in an image URL along with text and it generates a web page with the text making up the photo.  It looks pretty smooth, but it will kill your browser.  For whatever reason, it takes a lot of CPU.  The code shows that it’s creating a text with a location, rotation, position, and color.  So this took a bit just to create these three, but I think they look pretty good.  I’ll make up some more. (Click on photos for 1280×1024)

So as you may know, the name of this blog was inspired by the Basketball John song by Robert Lund.  Well, I thought it needed a fresh update as the original is now ten years old.  And with John Stockton no longer with the Jazz, I present to you, Basketball Paul (check on the link above for original lyrics and a sample for you to sing along to):

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
i love the basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

basketball paul
i love the baseketball paul
i love the basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

ladies and gentleman
i would like to tell you
a little story about the first time
that i went to a basketball game at the ESA

well, that famous player guy
he shot the ball into the air
and the really big mansap, he tipped the ball down to the little man
and the little man, he took that basketball
and he was dribbling it back and forth
on the court as fast as he could
and he was dribbling the ball
and passing the ball off to his teammates
and paul could grab rebounds from anywhere
and he grabbed them all and and that man’s name was

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
i love the basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

hey carlos boozer, sing this with me one time

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
i love the basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

hey carlos, that’s pretty good

and then there was this other time
that i went to the ESA
to see the utah jazz and paul millsap do his thing
and paul millsap was passing the ball behind his back
to carlos boozer and through people’s legs to
the ak-47 man
he blocked every shot that he blocked
and he was jumping so high he was blocking shots with his feet
and he was shooting the ball with his head
he grabbed 59 rebounds like, like in one minute
and he broke records all over the time
so everyone in the ESA was going crazy
going crazy for the man they called

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
i got a basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

okay coach has been practicing some more since the last time, he’s been taking lessons, let’s hear you coach…

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
(ok, ok, that’s enough)
i love the basketball (no, stop.  never again.) paul, paul millsap,(who let him back in here? no, really coach, that’s enough) ooo ooo ooooh.

then it was sunday afternoon
(oooohhh)
get him out..

and, and the nba’s all-star game was on
and dirk no whiskey was there
and carlos boozer was there
and lebron james and, and that chow meing guy
and, and then the tv announcer
he took the microphone in his hand
and he said, ladies and gentleman
i want to introduce to you
the best rebounder in all the world,
in all the nba, in all the universe
and the man we’re talking about, yeah!

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
i got a basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

okay memo, almond, deron, sing along here

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
i got a basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

okay, the cottonwood 14th ward relief society, here we go

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
(ahh, everybody singin)
i got a basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

(okay, come on everybody driving in your cars, everybody join in, sing along)

basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
(come on hot rod, err, bolerjack, you got to love it baby, err..)
i got a basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

(okay, okay, if you’re a utah jazz fan, you should be singing now)
basketball paul
i got a basketball paul
(come on governor huntsman, come on gary)
i got a basketball paul, paul millsap, ooo ooo ooooh.

oh man, you guys are great
you’re beautiful
thanks for helping us sing the new basketball paul millsap song
go, fight, win
bye

Am I getting more comfortable with the Price signing?  Maybe, now that O’Connor stated that he keeps his core players informed of signings and the direction they’re going.

We try to keep our players informed on things.  Specifically, do I talk about what we’re doing? Yes, we try to keep the guys we have under contract informed.

So I would assume that meant that Deron knew Dee wasn’t going to be kept.  I would think that if that was going to be a major issue for Williams, he would have said something to O’Connor at that point.  So while I don’t think Deron necessarily gave him his blessing, he had to be somewhat okay with it or I think there would have been a bigger fuss made and maybe Dee would have been given a guaranteed contract.

Other news:

• O’Connor not talking about Dee & CJ and Fes is still not officially a Jazz Man
• The NBA hates the Utah Jazz
• Next year’s 82 games leading to the playoffs