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UPDATE: Welcome Dancing with the Stars fans. Although this probably isn’t the type of blog you’re into, enjoy the Hough sighting. I would have got some more pictures, but alas, I was in the nosebleeds and she had floor seats. Continue your stalking…

To reciprocate, how about clicking here to vote for Deron Williams & Carlos Boozer for the NBA All-star team

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There’s nothing like a good stomach flu to suck out your will to live. That mixed with Christmas hosting duties didn’t let me finish the lame 10 days of Christmas like I wanted to. Here are the last two. I’ll I’m going to be able to do is link to what I wrote when they happened. Those that are disappointed can apply for a refund by hitting alt-F4.

• Derek Fisher Leaving - This probably had the biggest effect on the Jazz this year.
• AK wants out - Who knew that this would turn into the biggest non-story of the year? Other related AK articles here.

So now that that’s caught up, let’s get back to recaps, videos, and other news.

Having got some tickets to the Mavs game for Christmas, I was seriously bummed at possibly not being able to go due to the aforementioned stomach flu. But I thought, if Jordan can drop 38 in 1997’s game 5 at the Delta Center, then I can certainly sit my can in section 117 for a Jazz win.

Well, as a result, the Jazz record with me in attendance got pushed to 6-0. I’m guessing it will have to get closer to about 20-0 before I start hearing offers from the Jazz to give me free season tickets.

It was without a doubt the best defensive game of the season for the Jazz. That might not be backed up statistically, but from the games I’ve seen, it was the best they’ve looked. And you can look no further than the 16-0 run to start the game. They had their hands in everything and turned it into 18 turnovers for the game.

And even though he didn’t have a good night shooting percentage-wise, Memo drained a couple shots late in the fourth to hold off the Mavs. The past ten or so games (that he’s been playing in) those haven’t been going in. And that might be the difference in holding those fourth quarter leads. Dirk was only 3-10 from three, but those all came in the fourth and kept them in it. But a couple more defensive stops put this one away for the Jazz.

Complete Box Score

We had a row of die-hard Dallas fans in front of us who couldn’t get out of there fast enough with about 1:30 left. They were pretty cordial (they had kids with) and Jazz fans didn’t have too much to say except when Nowitski had a couple late-game turnovers, a small chant of MVP! MVP! broke out. But the best part was when the Dallas couple’s 3-year old daughter started cheering for the Jazz. The wife literally had to cover the little girl’s mouth because her father was getting angry. I wish I would have had a small Jazz ball or something to give her. Tell me how you’re going to take something like that away from a little girl? Maybe that should be the new strategy. When opponent’s fans come in the door with kids, instruct the ushers at the door to give them a little Jazz memorabilia.

We also had a Julianne and Derek Hough sighting from Dancing with the Stars. How would it be to be able to score court-side tickets like that? And even though we’ll give Julianne a free pass, I guarantee Derek is not a fan. If he could name to players I would be surprised. And in the AP caption, Julianne gets mislabeled as Jennie Garth. Is that a good or bad thing?

So even with their amazingly poor play, the Jazz are still only 2 games out in the division. And it’s taken 11 wins in a row for the Trail Blazers to overtake the Jazz. The new media darlings have been impressive. I have to admit I didn’t think they would be much of a threat this year, but Roy is really having an MVP stretch. What kind of pace will they keep up? Who knows. But their zone D looks really good. So you’re going to have to beat that first if you want to beat them. It’s not going to be the walk everyone thought it was going to be.

But if you ever need to pull out a win for your team, just come down with the stomach flu and head on over to the ESA.

Continuing “the no particular order” stories of the year…

On the 3rd day of Christmas the Utah Jazz gave to me…

New Jazz Prez

Now if this were in order of importance, this may have been #10 or maybe #17.  But because one of my original stories I thought happened in ‘07 happened in ‘06, I had to scrounge to find something.  And because I saw him at the Revue and had unknown photographic knowledge with him, Randy Rigby (man in the middle [not that way], blue tie) lands on the list.

He became Prez after Dennis Haslam stepped down to “pursue other interests.”  And of course it was a great big bawl-fest will LHM leading the way.

This note from the artcile was interesting:

Rigby has served as executive director of the Jazz 100 Club, an exclusive private group made up of local area leaders and business people with an interest in the success of the Jazz.

Is this like the Pentaverite?  It looks like Jim Olson is now the leader of this group.  I want names…  What other controlling influence does this group have?

I think this will become my New Year’s resolution for basketballjohn.com, to get to the bottom (or top) of the organization.  So if I go missing, someone send this post out to the police.  Well, wait at least a couple weeks, I may have gotten lazy.

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.

On the 5th day of Christmas, the Utah Jazz gave to me…

Western Conference Finals

With the Jazz slumping going into the playoffs, their run to the WCF had to be one of the most improbable in recent history.

Although they had the number four seed as winners of the Northwest Division, they lost home court advantage to the soaring Rockets in the final week of the season. In fact, they would play the Rockets in eight straight games, including the last game of the regular season.

So after dropping the first two in Houston , the Jazz headed home having never won a playoff series in which they were down 0-2. After an ugly game 1, Carlos Boozer made a small adjustment when being guarded by Yao. By getting a little more arc to his shot, he could pull the 7′ 6″ center away from the basket and shoot over him. Doing this made Yao guard against Boozer’s jump shot. And when Yao came out to guard him, Boozer would simply go right by. The series went 7 games, and the Jazz, who had lost 17-18 of their last road games in the playoffs, sent McGrady home in tears with a 103-99 win at Houston.

Up next, the rascally boys from Golden State. In one of the greatest upsets in playoff history, and not just in the NBA, the Warriors had knocked off the golden boys from Dallas in the first round. Besides not having to play the Mavs in the second round, the Jazz were also gifted with home-court advantage.

And here’s point 697 why in the NBA, match ups are everything. You see it almost every night where a good team gets beaten by teams that have no business winning most nights. Yet because of mis-matches created now with combo guards and combo forwards, some teams just don’t have the personnel or play type where they don’t play well against inferior teams. Would the Mavs have played better against the Jazz? Probably. But right after the Warriors were coming into the Jazz series with all the momentum and confidence in the world, they ran into a brick wall.

The Jazz manhandled the Warriors in five games. The series gave us cheap shots from Davis and Baron’s dunk over AK (which is still all you hear about from the series). But overshadowing almost the whole thing was Derek Fisher’s storybook return to game 2 . Of course at the time, no one knew that it would lead to his defection, but it was a moment to be remembered in Jazz history.

So the Jazz were off to the Western Conference Finals, their first trip since the push-off of 1997-98. Here they met the harsh reality that is the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs won the series 4-1, with the one victory coming in game 3 at Utah (at which I was at in person, keeping my undefeated attending streak in tact. I’m now 5-0 lifetime). And I was just reading my game five preview, in which contained some inspired foreshadowing concerning family vacations. After the game 5 loss, both Williams and Boozer took shots at teammates for not having heart and for planning family vacations before the series was over.

Those comments would lead to an ugly off-season by the Jazz…

Almost caught up…

On the sixth day of Christmas, the Utah Jazz gave to me…

Dee Brown’s gone

Sad news spread across most of Jazzland when they announced that they were signing Jason Hart and Ronnie Price.  Those two signings led to fan-favorite Dee Brown’s last days as a Jazz man.

Dee Brown went into the summer of ‘07 without a guaranteed contract from the Jazz.  They offered him a qualifying offer and a chance to make the team through his performance in the Rocky Mountain Revue.  But some say that they really had no intention of signing him to a guaranteed deal.  And that the real reason he was on his way out was because Larry Miller thought that he was a bad influence on Deron Williams.

While I can’t think of a single person that didn’t like Dee, some fans didn’t seem to mind that he was leaving.  They didn’t think he quite had what it takes to be in the NBA.  And to back up their statements, Dee wasn’t picked up by any of the other 29 NBA teams either when he was let go.

Others were infuriated and scared.  Why did they release (effectively) one of the most popular Jazz players?  Surely Brown was at least a competent third PG who knew Utah’s sometimes complicated offense?  He’s probably not as good as a shooter as Price and Hart (although this season might show otherwise), but he’s mainly a pass-first PG with speed who could run the offense should there be an injury or foul trouble with Williams.

But probably the biggest reason for concern in a lot of fan’s eyes was that by letting Dee go, and not treating him well in the process, that they would tick off his best friend Deron Williams.  What effect would this have on Deron wanting to re-sign with the Jazz once his rookie contract was up?  It wasn’t worth it.

As it turns out, Deron stated that he didn’t have a problem not playing for the Jazz, but he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t catch on with any NBA team.

So Dee was off to Turkey to play for the Galatasaray at the recommendation of Turk Mehmet Okur.   And so far he’s been playing pretty well there.

And despite knowing that he probably wouldn’t be returning to the Jazz, he still went on the Jr. Jazz tour throughout Utah and surrounding states, dropped a new CD, and participated in Deron’s charity golf tournament.   Couldn’t ask for a nicr guy.  Now if we only could have gotten him married when he was here in Utah.

The only thing lamer than a 10 days of Christmas list is a 10 days of Christmas list that doesn’t get updates daily. So without further ado, ….

On the 7th day of Christmas the Utah Jazz gave to me…

1000 wins

Even though this didn’t happen in 2006, let’s pretend that I blogged about the Jazz last December and I would have written about the 10 days of Christmas, this would have been since that last time.

On December 11th, 2006, Jerry Sloan picked up his 1000th win as a coach, as the Jazz beat the Mavericks. When asked what the win meant to him, in typical Sloan fashion he replied,

Well, I wish we would have hustled out there a little more. I didn’t like how we played defense during that 39 second stretch in the second. We’ll take the win, but I’m not happy with it.

Actually though, he said,

I would not have made it this far in my career without the support of those around me. This 1,000th win is not mine alone, it is due in large part to Larry Miller’s confidence in my ability to coach. Larry has given me an opportunity that no other coach in the league has had in terms of tenure with the Jazz. In addition, having the opportunity to work with such talented coaches as Phil Johnson, Tyrone Corbin, Scott Layden, and the others on my team, makes milestones like this possible.

Sloan should get another 1000 win milestone in the 2008-09 season (that he just signed on for) when he will win 1000 games with one team. And should he walk away after that season, the 09-10 season should start with with the above picture translated to a bronze statue outside of the ESA. What would be great is if it could be fitted with a speaker at the base where you could push some buttons and hear classic Sloan phrases coming from the bench. Of course, you would have to be 18 or be accompanied by an adult to participate.

So that only gives Sloan a couple more years to win a COY and a championship. What would his reaction be in the post-game interview if he ever won that elusive title? Discuss…

So I’m a little behind, what’s new? And with the Jazz losing their fifth straight, the motivation is slowly being sucked out of me. Here’s number eight and I’ll try to catch up with # 7 later today tonight.
On the 8th day of Christmas, the Utah Jazz gave to me:

Man in the Middle

John Amaechi made a big “Splash” when he came out on ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine. Of course he was also releasing a book at the same time, called “Man in the Middle.”

Part of the book chronicled his stint in the NBA and with the Utah Jazz, criticized Jerry Sloan, and spoke of him hiding his sexuality.

Although shortly after he arrived in Utah, it was probably one of the most known “secrets.” John stated that “by the end of my second season in Utah, I was practically daring reporters to out me.” Reporters would ask questions concerning his personal life trying to get him to say something. No one was going to print anything without an explicit admission. So the whole the became a Pat-like SNL sketch where the characters would ask Pat gender-specific questions to try to get him/her to reveal his/her sex. And to those questions Pat would answer with an ambiguous reply.

A big part of the book dealt with his relationship with Sloan. Amaechi stated that “when I brought up the ways the system didn’t work for me, Jerry looked like he wanted to shoot holes right through my heart.” Does that sound familiar? Amaechi became one of the founding fathers of Sloan’s doghouse. He claims that he spent most of the time on the bench because Sloan found out about his lifestyle. So as revenge for being relegated to the bench by Sloan, Amaechi braved the repressive community and headed for clubs and areas that were more conducive to his sexuality. He was openly gay, but never made a formal announcement while he was a player.

Perhaps it was best for his book that he came to Utah, “the repressive, Mormon capital of the Western world.” I thought it was the capital of the entire world. Would he have been able to fill up space if he had played somewhere else?

Would he have ever publicly came out if he hadn’t had a book to promote? I don’t know. You have to question the timing of it all. He said he’s spoken with other NBA players that were gay and they were all fearful of coming out because of the locker room mentality. Shavlik Randolph (who?) gave us this classic quote, “As long as you don’t bring your gayness on me I’m fine.”

Although John was the first NBA player to announce he was gay, there still hasn’t been an active player to come out. But why does there need to be? What does it matter either way? Neither side of the issue has anything to gain from it. Players that didn’t know were shocked when they found out. Amaechi didn’t let it affect his playing. I don’t think many people care.

On the 9th day of Christmas, the Utah Jazz gave to me:

#4 retired

It finally happened. Twenty-one years after leaving the Jazz, Adrian Dantley was finally recognized by the Jazz by having his number his number retired. After a much ballyhooed feud between Miller, Frank Layden, and Dantley, old grudges were put to rest and #4 finally received the recognition that he deserved.

I guess 21 years will do a lot to erase hard feelings. Miller admitted that at times he was “too immature as an owner.” Dantley also took responsibility for things, stating, “I was young, a little bit stubborn.”

There is no measure to what AD meant to the young Jazz franchise. I went over his stats earlier this year. He was one of the first big-time names that Jazz had. He was a little before my time, but I remember quickly hearing about him through the Jazz games and in the papers, even after he was no longer with the Jazz.

Now, hopefully next year’s installment of “It’s not lame, it’s the ten days of Christmas,” we’ll be reporting on on his enshrinement into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

I told you it wasn’t going to be a lame top ten list. And I hope that you weren’t expecting a 12 days of Christmas, because I figure that by the time I got releasing one a day, you wouldn’t read the last two anyway. We won’t see mention of the launching of basketballjohn.com or the great Alan Henderson trade (although we ended up with Fess from that).

So in no particular order, I’ll cover the big Jazz headlines from the previous year. I have to admit, I forgot about a couple of them. So with 10 business days remaining until Christmas, I give you the first annual, “It’s not lame, it’s the 10 days of Christmas.”

On the 10th day of Christmas, the Utah Jazz gave to me:

No Rape Charges

In our own version of the Duke LAX rape case, four Utah players were accused in the rape of a Portland woman during a Portland pre-season game in October 2006. Dee Brown, Deron Williams, Paul Millsap, and Ronnie Brewer were all suspects.

After a late-night visit to a strip club, the four Jazz players invited the accuser to come back to the hotel. On the way home, they stopped off at a convenience store to buy some condoms for Brewer. Once back at the hotel, the players had to convince her to go upstairs, according to hotel employees. That’s where it turns into a they-said, she-said.

She appeared in the lobby from the elevator some time later, alone and naked. She claimed she was raped and the employees called the police.

Each player was interviewed separately and gave consistent accounts of what happened.

Dee went back to his room to play video games. Williams and Millsap left after she started talking about being raped before and crying. That left Brewer to defend the fort. Apparently it was his room so he “built a divider with blankets and pillows, telling her she could sleep on the bed or the floor if she wanted to stay.”

So on January 5, 2007, the prosecutors released a statement that there would be no charges against any of the players as none of them could be positively identified.

How would the Jazz have been affected if they had been charged officially, let alone convicted?

And whatever your point of view is on going to strip clubs, it could have ended at that. They were asking for trouble in this situation. I can’t believe that any of them thought that all four of them taking her back to the hotel where she had stated that she wanted to “have sex with two of them at the same time,” was a good idea. I’m not judging any of them, but being high-profile athletes, you have to know that this kind of thing can happen. Whether they did it or not, just the accusations are enough to cause problems.

And some feel that this is one of the things that led to Dee not being re-signed because of his “bad influence”. If that’s the case, wouldn’t the blame be more on Deron? Although still a young bunch, he’s the veteran.

We forget sometimes that a lot of our heroes are people too. And we also forget that although they’d like to consider themselves men, they’re still boys.

Other notes

• How did they get four NBA players and a girl from the strip club in a cab?
• Maybe if Brewer could bring pillows and blankets to a game, he could build forts to keep shooting guards out.