True Garbage

What has happened? I remember recently sending a slightly over-enthusiastic text message to my brother which stated that the Utah Jazz were fifth in team PER as rated by Hollinger. This was big news. For once I believed in this ridiculous statistic (the individual one is better, but I still have my doubts about it as well) partly because of my obvious biases toward my hometown team, but also because it described what I was seeing myself with the few bits of box scores, two-minute highlights, the win-loss spread over the last ten games, and other scraps that I can accrue in Seattle.

Then Minnesota struck. For the fourth time of the season and the second time against Utah. Of their twenty losses, Deron Williams owns none. Of their four wins, Carlos Boozer owns half. This is pathetic. And after beating such teams as the Lakers, the Magic, and the Spurs, no less. This was then followed up by a 2-3 road trip, in which I was able to watch one of the most sloppy games I have ever seen against the Heat. Dwayne Wade usually owns the Jazz, but on this day, he didn't even have to (he did score 29 points). Carlos Boozer scored 12 points in the first couple minutes and then 2 points (free throws!) for the rest of the game. Okur looked like a joke. A big ugly, joke. I hate to pick on the guy. Lord knows every team needs an unathletic white center who can't play defense, can't create his own shots, rarely rebounds, and can shoot threes all day, while making a slightly less than great percentage of them. In defense of the big man, he did do something that very few (if any) have done before and very few (if any) will do again: he made Boozer look like a first-team defensive player.

What makes me more furious about this team is the trade of Eric Maynor. Unless this is the precursor to a blockbuster trade of Boozer for a good big man, this trade is unacceptable. If the Jazz didn't want to pay over the salary cap, they shouldn't have re-signed both Boozer and Milsap. Don't ruin the future to make up for your poor off-season management. At this point, I am at a loss: I don't know which league the GM is watching. We are slow, we can't play defense, and we are wasting the talent of a truly brilliant player in Williams. Now, we have ruined the great picks of two rookies (one undrafted) to clear up some money (apparently). Utah is too good for this. We have too much tradition for it. We were infamous as a dirty, defensive team that was *nasty*. Now, it seems that management of the team is content to sit back and sneak into the playoffs in a very talented conference, unwilling and unable to make bold moves and surround our only hope for salvation with some real talent, instead of ugly big men (Lamar Odom still looks and balls like Ms. America compared to Okur). This is all I want for belated Christmas: a dedication to trying to win a championship, risking losing more games while attempting to win more. In the words of another ugly white guy, "Merry Fucking Christmas." (Larry Bird)