The Utah Jazz | as seen by Basketball John

MR. STEINBRENNER: Nice to meet you.

GEORGE: Well, I wish I could say the same, but I must say, with all due respect, I find it very hard to see the logic behind some of the moves you have made with this fine organization. In the past twenty years you have caused myself, and the city of New York, a good deal of distress, as we have watched you take our beloved Yankees and reduced them to a laughing stock, all for the glorification of your massive ego!

MR. STEINBRENNER: Hire this man!

It’s not likely in “real life” that anyone would be able to get a job with the Yankees if this were a real conversation.

And I’m no more to getting a writing gig with ESPN any more than Isiah Thomas will stay with the Kni…  Well, maybe that’s not a good example.

Anyway, if you don’t know by now, today’s earlier post about joining ESPN.com and NBA.com is nothing more than delusions of granduer.

I really didn’t think too many people would buy it.  Especially since PCA’s first comment gives it away.  But props to him for letting me know that an earlier gag post about one of the Wiz players getting busted for prositution might tip too many people off.

So April Fool’s to everyone.  Looks like I got a majority of you.  And that includes Henry Abbott of TrueHoop.  He might have had a small heart attack.  More on that some other time.

But thanks for thinking that I could have written for the WWL.

Talk to you all tomorrow.

Tell me what’s wrong with this picture from today’s Daily Dime?

The column has nothing to do with Chris Paul.  But I guess since he didn’t play last night, they have to put his picture in somewhere.

Amazing.

UPDATE:  Thanks for this tidbit from Nick.  It’s in the comments, but in case you’re reading this from the main page,

It gets worse. I read this thing last night, and it originally mentioned how Paul finished March with 199 assists, making him be one short of being the only PG in the last 10 years other than Nash to finish a month with 200 or more assists. But then somebody noticed, oops, Williams had 212 this month, so they changed it. Isn’t that interesting, Paul’s almost matching a substantial achievement matters more than Williams actually doing it.

Question, why not make it a story about Williams instead? Oh. . .right.

One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes of all time is “The Opposite.” George decides that every instinct that he’s ever had was wrong and that’s the reason for his sorry little life. Instead of tuna on toast, he has chicken on rye, untoasted. He picks up a lady telling her that he’s unemployed and living with his parents. The climax of the episode is when he’s hired by the New York Yankees as the assistant to traveling secretary by telling off George Steinbrenner instead of kissing up to him.

When he’s telling Jerry about his new job, he states, “I’m busting Jerry, I’m busting.” Jerry says, “Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle … Costanza?”

Well I have to echo George’s sentiment, I’m busting. That’s because I’ve been writing this blog for a little over a year now and never really expected much to come of it. But that’s about to change.

ESPN and the NBA are starting up a new basketball blogging network which I’ve been chosen to be a part of. Many will remember when Henry Abbott, of TrueHoop.com, was hired by ESPN to be their full-time NBA blogger. It turns out that that was just the beginning.

Under Henry’s direction, 30 other NBA bloggers will be team-specific bloggers for ESPN and the NBA. All of our stuff now will be on ESPN.com and NBA.com. This really gives new media (blogging) some much-needed credibility. The NBA now sees that more and more fans are moving to blogs for their information on their favorite teams.

So starting with the playoffs, I’ll be working the Jazz home games. I’ll have deadlines, article requirements, etc. But it will still be the same Basketball John that you’ve always read. It will just be on a different site.

Which leads me to my next topic. It’s crazy that you get attached to something as silly as a domain name. But as a result of this new opportunity, I won’t be able to maintain basketballjohn.com. It kind of takes on a life of its own. I haven’t decided if I’ll keep it and just let it expire, or if I’ll hand the reins over to someone else. If you’re at all interested in taking over BBJ, please email me and let me know. I can’t say that’s what I’ll be doing for sure, but I think I’m leaning that way.

More details to follow. Once I get a URL for the new site, I’ll get it up.

If you can explain the ABC series Lost to me, then you might be able to explain the Jazz at home and the Jazz away from home.  They’re kind of like the Losties on and off the island.  Some of the theories for Lost as why things are so different on the island involve time travel, a parallel universe, and the supernatural.

Whenever the Jazz leave the Wasatch Mountains, they rip through a space-time continuum into a universe where they suck.  Maybe someone should check that the Jazz aren’t flying out on Oceanic 815.  But in the shadows of Mount Olympus, the Jazz are nearly unstoppable.

That was certainly the case again as the Jazz destroyed the Wizards, 129-87.  This one was never in doubt.  That was in large part due to the team record 15 three pointers and CJ Miles.

The Jazz let it rain threes down on the Wiz.  The Jazz went 15-26 from downtown with Miles making 4 of those.  Memo and Korver had 3 apiece, Deron and Price had 2, and Almond made his first of the year.

The star of the night, much to UtesFan89’s delight, was none other than CJ Miles.  CJ got the start with Brewer and AK out.  And he made the most of it tonight.  My biggest criticism of Miles has been that when he gets the chance to play, he hasn’t been very consistent.  Of course UtesFan89 will tell you that’s because he doesn’t get enough PT.  That may be true.  But with a game like tonight’s, he may finally get more consistent PT.  He finished with a career high 29 points on 12-17 shooting as well as 4 rebounds and 5 assists.

Price also got only his second career start.  And I have to say that I like the Price/Williams backcourt.  It has a certain dynamic to it that presents matchup problems for the opposing team.  Either one can penetrate and create.  And when Deron comes out, you have Price that’s still in that can run the show.  He finished with 10 &4.

You would think though that having Price and Deron in at the same time would take away from Deron’s assists.  Not so.  Overlooked tonight, if that’s possible, was Deron’s 16 assists.  He had 13 at the half.  It was only because of the blowout that we didn’t get to see him go for a career high.  He also had three steals with one coming at the end of the first half when he nailed a three and then swiped the ball after the inbound pass and nearly drained another three at the buzzer.

Other stats…  Boozer had 19 & 2 (yes, two rebounds), Memo had 16, Korver scored 15, and Harp added 13.  Hornacek stated that when both Korver and Harp score double-figures, the Jazz are 13-0.  That tells me that the bench adds a lot to the success of the Jazz.

Up next is the revenge game against the Wolves tomorrow.  This game was kind of a revenge game.  You know that they wanted to come out and make a statement.  Let’s just hope that they do the same to the Wolves and to the Spurs on Friday.

In other games of relevance, the Mavs beat the Clips to stay in the playoffs.  And Denver blew a 22-point lead to the Suns and end up getting beat by 15.  The downside is that a Suns’ loss would have put the Jazz just a half game back of them.  But on the plus side, Denver drops 3 1/2 games back of the Jazz and are now out of the playoffs.  As much as I love it when Denver loses, I’d much rather make up ground for home-court advantage.  And both teams turn around and play each other again Tuesday night @ Denver.  So once again, it’s a win-win for the Jazz.  There’s no way I can root for the Nuggets, but if they do win, that’s okay.  But if a loss gets us closer to clinching, that’s okay too.

Other blogs,

• Biased Fan
• My Utah Jazz
• Ross Siler
• Bullets Forever