The Utah Jazz | as seen by Basketball John

The Jazz take on the Bobcats of Charlotte in just a bit.  A couple things going against the Jazz in this one.  They play like crap on the road this year, Memo is probably still out, and they haven’t been able to win save against Seattle.  The good side is that they’re playing a Seattle-type team.

Charlotte should be a game where they Jazz can try to regain some confidence.  It would be a good sign if they Jazz could blow out the Cats and regain some fan confidence as well.

On to the links before the game:

• Hollinger just compared Deron Williams to Terry Porter - Amazing.  This guy doesn’t even phase me anymore.
• Great PG discussion - And of course it leads to the 8 v. 3 debate.  But he’s got it right.
• The most random link I’ve ever received- Just one of the peeps
• No Jay-Z here
• The resurgence of AK
• Dee Brown is still alive - Hadn’t heard from him in a while.

Is Ostertag still available for his outside shot?

On the 4th day of Christmas the Utah Jazz gave to me:

Jazzbots.com (and the rise of other Jazz blogs)

2007 may well be remember for the rise of the blog.  Looks at all the sites you get for your Google search.  It’s crazy.  With Blogger.com or Wordpress.com, you can have your rants ready to go in less time than it takes Sloan to bench Giricek.

But none rose quicker than the machine known as Jazzbots.com.  Back in August they announced that they would be holding a contest for Jazz fans to become writers for the new site.  They would be given inside access to the inner workings of the organization.  And for writing a couple times a week, they would get a couple tickets and a jersey.  That’s quite the deal for the Jazz.  How much would that cost the team if they paid normal pay for writers contributions?  I haven’t yet seen any “inside” info.  I don’t know why I’m complaining, it’s more than I get for writing this.  Although the last time I checked my Adsense account, I was up to $1.15.  But this non-bitter, non-selected applicant doesn’t hold any ill will

And shortly after jazzbots launched, they became fodder for many other sites.  Well, okay, maybe just harpingsucks.com.  But the main assailant from HS left for greener pastures with HoopsVibe (check here for more jazzbots stuff). They also came under attack from another non-Jazz site.  But the PR machines rolled on.

So how many more Jazz blog sites will launch?  Well, I imagine that that would depend on the success of the Jazz (do you know how many times I have to re-word sentences so that I avoid writing things like the Jazz’s success). 

If you have any inclination of starting a new blog, please stop.  I’m looking for some people that would like to contribute to basketballjohn.com.  I’ve built up a few more readers than you would have starting out of the gate.  I’d like to see if we couldn’t build up something to rival the beast.  So if you want to write a little or a lot, let me know.  We probably have a couple people on board now.  Email or leave a comment if you’re interested and I’ll give you some more details.  I may even split my $1.15 with you.