Utah Jazz team preview

the jazz were a bit of a suprise last year if you only consider their two most recent iterations and forget the grandmaster that is jerry sloan.
frankly, he looks like he was hit in the face with a folding chair at a 45 degree angle; his nose perfectly continues the slant of his forehead in an almost cartoonish way. also, he's a bit of a racist asshole in the same way that all old ball coaches are. i don't mean racist in the way that he hates black people, because come on, it's not like he can avoid them in his line of work. i mean racist like if you come to practice wearing a gold chain...

just don't come to jerry sloan's practice wearing a gold chain, aight?

bottom line, he knows how to make a basketball team win some damn games. even when his supposed "best player" (the awesomely nicknamed AK47) is shitting the bed like a 96-year-old never nervous pervis he still squeezes a 51 win season out of his team. not as though the rest of the team is a bunch of slouches--boozer has overcome his negative karma from pulling the rug from under the cavs blind owner, memo okhur has let his wife show him the way to clutch greatness, and deron williams is staking a claim as the next great power guard (baron davis, sit down.)

but maybe that collection doesn't win 51 games in any other hands than jerry sloan's gnarled old ones. say what you will about him, he knows how to coach basketball.

that's why they could be headed to a better season than their last. forget all the other western conference teams, the jazz have a legit chance to add 3-4 wins to their record, which none of the others can claim. in a season where most of the teams are idling or in reverse, the jazz could be moving forward simply because of the logical progression of their talent. deron williams will only get better with age, same goes for ronnie brewer who will hopefully take the 2 guard spot for his own.

pretty much every other team in the conference has stood still, and none of them boast the promising youngsters that the jazz do. especially after they lose derek fisher, who was secretly dead weight as a shooter that can't really shoot the rock at all.

mark them down to keep the 4 seed, especially with kirilenko having a possible rebound campaign and maybe morris almond stepping up as this year's under-the-radar rook.

prediction 53-29, first in northwest division

The Answer Cometh

Fresh off denying Jerry Sloan his 1,000th, KG drops a bombshell I certainly didn't see coming.
For those too lazy to click through, here's what it is:

"Bring it on, I love 'The Answer," Garnett said Friday night. "We welcome A.I. with open arms. Where's Kevin McHale?"

Whoa.
I have to admit that I'm not entirely ready for this pairing to happen just yet. Simmons claims that KG is the ultimate second banana, whatever that means. He's never truly been a dominant scorer in the purest sense of the word. Also, he's never been a dominant big man, despite being arguably the best in the game.

His versatility is his ultimate downfall. KG resembles Lamar a lot in that regard; he is perhaps tortured by his ability to do so much, that he settles for less than the sum of his parts. For Garnett, this is less true than it is for Lamar, but the concept lurks just below the surface.

Were he to focus on any one aspect of his game, he might morph into a more dominant, more perfect player than he already is. However, it is that dangerous element of raw imperfection that lends KG's game its indisputable charm. He isn't shackled to the post like so many of his predecessors and prodecessors.Garnett isn't easily comparable to anyone in particular. If anything, he is the idealized image of what Fab5-era CWebb should have been. Minus the boneheaded timeout calls, the petulance, and plus some insane competitive fervor.

The Answer brings many of the same elements to the table. He is a non-traditional player in a very real sense of the word; upon NBA entry, he violated every conceivable rule of style and etiquette both on the court and off on his way to becoming the Best 6-Footer Ever (caps definitely necessary.)

Like KG, he brings an insatiable desire for victory onto the floor, as well as the skills and motivation to sacrifice every inch of his frail humanity to achieve that success.

However, he differs from Garnett in his desire to score the damn ball. While KG sometimes seems vaguely content to exist w/in the flow of the offense, AI Creates his own flow on the fly. Sometimes he realigns some inviolable tenets of The Right Way while doing so, but so be it. Maybe all Garnett needs to reach his own personal promised land is a little bit of hood flavor.

Stand up and give thanks

Lamar Blogom celebrates its first Thanksgiving with a feast fit for a king. The seazon has so far yielded bountiful treasures with the promise of many more to come. So, we list 24 things that we are thankful for:

1. Andrew Bynum becoming Big Pussy and flashing strands of future greatness.
2. ATLanta proving that you can win games with a roster of only people 6'7" or 6'8".
3. The Heat collapsing in on themselves like some kind of aging supernova.
4. Starbury's Starburies.
5. Nate Robinson swatting Yao Ming.
6. Yao Ming, best center in the league.
7. Kevin Garnett, tortured soul in search of absolution.
8. Amare's return.
9. Josh Smith.
10. Gerald Wallace.
11. Brendan Haywood's favorite movie is Coming to America.
12. CP3 and Weezy F. Baby bringing back the N.O.
13. Chris Bosh making game winning 3s.
14. Don Nelson taking over the Yay Area.
15. Monta Ellis.
16. Jerry Sloan fashioning a sleek new version of Old School.
17. Kaveman's hair.
18. TMac is healthy.
19. Darko (almost) dominant.
20. Grant Hill's ankles are intact.
21. Mamba's newfound efficiency.
22. JR Smith, NBA starter.
23. Ron Ron is still playing.
    
24. Lamar Odom beginning to fathom his own depths.