The Utah Jazz | as seen by Basketball John

Just when you thought that the Korver/Giricek talk would start to die down, you get a little more now that Philly is in town just few days after the trade.

Giri is going out with his girlfriend (really, I didn’t think he was gay) to his favorite restaurant (any guesses?) on his return to the SLC.  I wonder if she lives here.  And Korver is still probably looking for housing and a good place to eat.

Both have stated that facing their old team isn’t a big issue.  Gordan would have the biggest reason for playing well against the Jazz, I don’t think he will play enough to be able to exact revenge.  Although if he can drill a three to finish out the game, I’m sure he would feel some measure of satisfaction.

The big argument on Jazz boards and some blogs is that Korver is taking away minutes from Miles and Brewer who have both been playing well.  He shouldn’t be as he’s mainly a SF.  I think their decline in minutes against the Portland game was more for that matchup more than how things are going to be.  And there’s no denying that he brought a buzz to the arena and to the team.  The obvious person who should be losing PT is Harpring.  But he’ll stay in there until one of his legs breaks off at the knee.  And even then he wouldn’t be any worse on defense so he’ll probably stay in.  But we may see more of Korver tonight as he could play a bigger role in defending his old teammates.

I’m not ready to say that the Jazz are back to their winning ways despite the impressive win over Portland.  They have to rattle off a few in a row, including some road games, before my confidence will be back up.  That said, this game should be on of the easier ones and we should have the Jazz riding a wave of confidence from the last game.  This one shouldn’t be close for long.

• Jazzfanz discussion
• 76ers Blog
• 76ers Locker
• SLTrib & More Trib
• USA Today

Smell that?  It’s the first post of the New Year.  What better way to start it with some links?  Game-night post coming up later.

• Where have you gone, Our dear Me-eh-mo?
• Google: How to win a game
• I don’t quite understand how UtesFan feels about Sloan.
• Philly fans are still +- about the Korver trade.
• More Philly fan blog reaction
• We love us some Korver - I like Giri’s quote about there being 30 teams come this summer when he hits the free agent market.  There are 30, but I would bet there are at least two teams that wouldn’t be interested.
• One more reaction to the Korver trade - I just want to know how he gets so many comments and only been around a few months.

Speaking of which, I’m working on redesigning the site with a new look and some more features.  The plan is to get it up sooner than later of course, but hopefully it will become more of a Jazz portal with community features and other stuff.  I’m trying to roll it out gradually, so there may be some subtle and not so subtle changes coming.