Preseason SportsBot Part 2

It’s good to be back. First off, we would love to thank Derek Fisher, Billy Hunter, and David Stern for painfully pounding out the new collective bargaining agreement between the NBPA and NBA. We, the fans, are so happy that the players were able to get their 51.2% of the revenue. Who knows how they would have fed their families with anything less…
Tonight is game night! With all the recent changes in the Jazz organization we could probably spend a lot of time talking logistics, but that would be boring. Instead, let’s just take a look as to why the Jazz are going to help the Lakers achieve a solid 0-3 start, and consistently dominate throughout the season.

Youth. 3 sophomores. 2 rookies. 70% of the Jazz are under the age of 28. Shortened condensed season. Advantage, Jazz.
Jeff Hornacek. Did you ever see that guy play? Rumor has it that he’s an even better assistant coach than was a player.
Jazz fans. We’re the meanest, loudest, most loyal fans everrr!
Paul Millsap. He makes the Miami Heat look foolish.
No Deron Williams to ruin our team.
Derrick Favors. He’s the next Karl Malone.
Green Uniforms. The Jazz always win in green.
Gordon Hayward. He’s a tall, young, skinny, white kid! Remember when he owned Kobe at the end of last season? Expect more of that this year.
Jazz Jam Championships. Without halftime slam dunk contests all would be lost.

Tonight all of our dreams come true!

GO Jazz!!!!

Preseason SportsBot Part 1

Now that the lockout is over, Doug and I can get back to writing about sports. Little known fact that even I just learned: UtahSportsBot was on a lockout with the NBA. But now we’re back! So without further ado, here are Nate’s top reasons the NBA is back! In no particular order:
The Utah Jazz!
Basketball on Christmas!
The Heat having to start their season watching the Mavericks receives their rings and banner!
The look on LeBron James’ face while that is happening
Basketball highlights on ESPN
The return of the Jazz Jam Championships! (Where Doug, Topher, Matt, me, and various other friends have slam dunk contests during the halftime of Jazz games. Is their a trophy? Yes. Yes, there is.)
Thinking about basketball so much every piece of trash becomes a basketball and every trash can it’s basket
Going to only one Jazz game in the entire season because the tickets are so expensive. Unless I get lucky again and Matt gets me another free ticket. What a great friend that kid is.
Watching every other game on T.V.
Paul Milsap’s jump shot
The inevitable point in the playoffs where the refs give the game away because the NBA would rather have the Lakers in the Finals than the Jazz
It’s going to be a great season! Go Jazz!

And the Winner is....

This beauty illustrated by Aaron Walker! This will be the new logo of your favorite sports blog! Great job Aaron, your trophy is in the works! Special thanks to Pat for his submission too!

Jazz Karma and the crazy hard to pronounce last name theory

So last night before USB 1.0(Nate, as opposed to 2.0-Doug, the better version.) was going to bed, he turned on the Jazz game right in time see Kobe bury a 3-pointer to tie the game with enough time for each team to have a possession. Was I surprised? Of course not. The Jazz hadn't won in Staples center in 17 trips! 17! They showed a clip of the last time we won...needless to say it involved Greg Ostertag. I knew how this was going to play out. A missed shot by the Jazz, Kobe winning it at the buzzer. Did I turn it off even though I knew it was going to end that way? Of course not. The Jazz have a way of always getting your hopes up. Anyway, what happened? Exactly what I predicted....wait....Gordon Hayward hit a free throw?....and Kobe fumbled the winning shot?....Does anyone else hear twilight zone music??? This morning as I read about it(this is what I love about sports: We'll watch a game. And the clips on Sports Center. And read every article we can find. Why? Who knows, we just do.) I realized something, the Karma has reversed and I attribute it all to Gordon Hayward. Not because he scored a career high 22 points. Not because he outplayed and out hustled Kobe, earning Kobe's affection(which might be a bad thing...definitely is a bad thing). It's because of what happened last year when he barely missed the winning shot in the NCAA championship. The basketball gods slipped up letting him miss that and letting Duke win. No one wants to see Duke win. They're like the Yankees. So now they are repaying him and it started last night. Our luck is finally looking good. Thank you Gordon! Goodbye bad karma, hello 2012 NBA Finals featuring finals MVP Gordon Hayward. GO JAZZ!

P.s. Best Friend of the Blog, Chris Loftus, asked USB's opinion on the hiring of Larry Krystkowiak. All I know is that he once played for the Jazz(thumbs up) and now coaches the Utes(double thumbs up). So that gives him 3 thumbs up, so he's good in our book. But seriously, I have a new theory based of Coach K of Duke. When a coach with a crazy hard to pronounce name gets hired, your team is guaranteed 900 wins and 4 national championships. So here's to decades of Ute dominance in basketball(and football) in the Pac-12. GO UTES!

Here’s to a better decade of draft picks!

In a previous article, we mentioned how the Jazz could potentially have three picks in the upcoming draft. We decided that we should educate you on the history of the Jazz draft picks over the last eleven years and hypothesize on what the Jazz should do in the 2011 Draft. As we researched how the draft has gone in the past for us, I wanted to take a Karl Malone knee to the chest. It was painful to see who we’ve lost and who we could have chosen. Also, analyzing these picks has led to possibly the greatest mystery in sports: Why would we give up three players, yes you read that right, three players to get Greg Ostertag BACK!?!?! Not for the first time, but for the last of his 11 seasons!!! If that doesn’t leave you utterly baffled we don’t know what would. So here is out the last 11 drafts for the Jazz have played out with accompanying notes on whether or not the player is still with us, who we traded him for, and whether or not the pick was acceptable or not in USB’s eyes.
2010: Gordon Hayward-We like Hayward. He is averaging 13.7 minutes per game in his rookie season. Most importantly, after a dunk in Indianapolis he was able to get the opposing crowd to chant his name. Granted that is where he grew up and almost brought a championship to Butler, it was still an impressive feat.
2009: Erick Maynor-traded for the rights to Peter Fehse who is hanging out on a German team. We can live with this trade, because it was really about getting rid of contracts to lower luxury tax responsibilities. Nothing we can find suggests Fehse will be heading towards the NBA, but Harpring was part of that trade to OKC, he retired, and is now our color guy, so this was great.
2008: Kosta Kofus-Part of trade for Al Jefferson. On the surface we’re okay with choosing Kosta because that pick helped us get Al Jefferson, who we love because he is like Carlos Boozer. Just better and less girly. (See Big Al’s 70 games this season vs. Boozer’s 45. Plus Big Al was never benched in the 4th quarter due to lack of hussle. Boozer? Of course he was.) But the problem is that we could have chosen Big Al in 2004. So there is no excuse for this pick. Plus, we could have chosen Serge Ibaka! Who is that you ask? Well number one, he is from the Congo, so he is like family considering we both spent 2 years in Africa and countless hours with Congolese people. And number two, in the recent slam dunk contest he dunked from the free throw line. For real. Not Doctor J/MJ foot over the line style. He actually jumped FROM the line. It was awe inspiring. And he could have done it in a Jazz uni. No excuse.
2007: Morris Almond-Played in D-League, ended up with Orlando Magic. We don’t have too much to say about this. We could have chosen Aaron Brooks, Arron Afflalo, or Marc Gasol, all of which are contributing for NBA teams and would have at least given us some trade value…actually…this is inexcusable too! If we would have chosen Marc Gasol, the Laker’s wouldn’t have, and then wouldn’t have been able to trade for Pau Gasol, who helped Kobe get focused again, which led to multiple titles. So I blame the Jazz for that. Bad pick.
2006: Ronnie Brewer-Traded for a protected first round pick. It’s too early to tell about this one. When we traded Ronnie we got the Warriors pick for this year, but it is protected if they are in the top 14. This is how we could potentially have 3 picks, if the Warriors finish 15 or better, we get their pick. Now, we could have chosen Rajon Rondo, but we had already chosen D-Will the year before, so we didn’t need a point guard. So we’ll see how this plays out, so far, we have no verdict.
2005: Deron Williams-Traded for Devin Harris, Derrick Favors, two first round picks. We all know how this played out. Pure basketball genius.
2004: We had two first round picks this year. Kris Humpries who was traded after two seasons for Rafael Arujo who played for 28 games before leaving to Russia. We then chose Kirk Snyder who was part of the horrific trade for Greg Ostertag. This is the year we could have chosen Al Jefferson. So we pretty much chose a gassed out, one season left Ostertag for a fresh out of high school Al Jefferson. Makes you want to take a fastball to the ribcage doesn’t it?
2003: Sasha Pavlovic. We could have taken Kendrick Perkins, but we lost Pavlovic in the expansion draft, so who knows if we would have lost Perkins, so we’ll give the Jazz Front Office the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they knew he was going to be taken and didn’t want take any heat for losing a good player.
2002: Curtis Borchardt- Which would you rather have: Tayshaun Prince’s whole career or Greg Ostertag’s last season. Point made.
2001: Raul Lopez. Do you see why this was so painful for us. We could have had Tony Parker! But no, we chose Raul Lopez! Who? Exactly! And guess who we traded him for….yup..GREG OSTERTAG!!! We’re about to lose our minds.
2000: DeShawn Stevenson who was traded for Gordon Giricek who was traded for Kyle Korver who we lost in free agency. There was really no one of note chosen after DeShawn, so will give this one to the Jazz.
So as you can see, out of the last 11 drafts, five have been absolutely horrendous. No reasonable explanation. Once again…we basically traded Tayshaun Prince, Al Jefferson, and Tony Parker for Greg Ostertag! Not even brand new Greg Ostertag would make that okay. So USB has answered the un-solicited call from the Jazz to help with the next draft. Here are our scenarios based off what the lottery would look like now, and since the Warriors would be 11th, we won’t get their pick, so we’ll be picking 6th and 12th.
#1: Trade the picks. It’s the easy way out and boring so we won’t delve into this.
#2: Jimmer!!! Either at 6 or 12 it doesn’t matter, we just need to keep Jimmer-mania contained in Utah. From a purely business standpoint it is genius! With Jerry and Deron gone and with our season not looking so good, attendance could potentially drop. Not with Jimmer on the team. Home games will be packed and jersey sales will skyrocket. From a basketball standpoint it is also genius! A) We’ve already established he has laser-like shot with robotic range. No one can stop the Jimmer. B) It is a proven fact that Jimmer plays better on the road which is perfect. Historically the Jazz thrive at home and tank on the road. Not with Jimmer. Jimmer’s 50 foot three’s will silence crowds and bring us the energy we need. The only downside: Jimmer will have to choose a new number. We recommend him becoming the first player ever to use the infinity sign as his number, symbolic of his infinite range.
#3: If someone takes Jimmer we can always let history repeat itself and do something dumb.
We hear Ostertag is thinking of coming out of retirement.

The Joys of Jazz Fandom

Thanks to best friend of the blog Matt Thomas, USB had the opportunity to witness the heart breaking thriller that was the Jazz’s loss to the Hornets. Although the loss was devastating, we came away with a few observations and comments:

A)     Basketball is 10x more exciting in person, 100x more exciting on the 8^th row (thanks again Matt!), and 1000x more exciting when Hayward blocks Chris Paul on a break-a-way layup.

B)     You know that kid in high school that feels he is the best person on the court and because of this he feels entitled to get special treatment from the refs? That is Chris Paul. He complained at an above average rate, even for NBA players, who are notorious for arguing with the refs. He was borderline throwing temper tantrums every other play.

C)     Chris Paul is not the best person on the court. We’ve read a lot about how Paul has lost some of his speed since his injury, but it was ever so apparent last night. Now, we love Earl Watson, but he won’t be in any argument for best point guard in the league. Yet, Chris Paul couldn’t beat him off the dribble and on multiple occasions Watson blew past him to find an open man or lay it up himself.

D)    Paul Millsap is the best person on the court. His is now officially Nate’s favorite player. Matt said it best, “He gets no love.” It is so true, even at home where you would expect a few calls to go his way; he routinely got fouled with no call. He also was the only player on the court that when he put up a shot, you knew it was going in. You had no doubts. The only other player that came close was Al Jefferson and his turn around one handers from ten feet out. Millsap also made two circus shots. Were we surprised they went in? Of course not.

E)     The Basketball gods hate the Jazz. We’ll have to devote an entire column to this later, but there is no way that against any other team Okafor’s get his shot off in time, let alone makes it. What did we do to deserve getting our hearts wrenched out game after game, season after season!?

F)     Fans that leave before the end of the game deserved to be punished. Either ban them for a season or forever. I prefer the latter. There is no excuse to leave early. Sure we lost by four, but that game wasn’t over until the time was gone. People had left and we were still in it! Watson and Millsap missed a free throw each. Hayward missed a three. That’s five points! We could have just as easily won as we lost! There was no reason to leave! What message does that send to the players, quitting before it’s over!? They are the Carlos Boozer of Jazz fans. You should be ashamed.

G)    Don’t be like Red Sox fans. The only MLB game I have been to was between the Red Sox and the Padres. The Red Sox won and after the game they were chanting, “Yankees Suck!” Now don’t get me wrong, I completely agree, but what did that have to do with anything?! I lost all respect for their fans at that moment. Last night during an injury timeout it was quiet and someone yelled, “BYU sucks!” Seriously dude? We’re in an injury timeout in the NBA and you yell that? Hours after the game is over? He looked like a complete idiot. That was until someone replied, “Oh yeah? How far did Utah get?” Comments at games should only be directed at one of the two teams playing. The end.

We want to end with one more point. The future is looking bright for the Jazz. You know they are in a good position when Matt can ask a question like, “What are we going to do with two first round draft picks?” Matt also had a great point, give this team an offseason to get comfortable with each other and we will be back in the hunt for a championship.

Which we will somehow lose with Jordan-esque push off by Dwayne Wade/Derrick Rose/Paul Pierce.

Oh the joys of Jazz fandom. 

Things of Genius. Things of Beauty. Utah Sports Bot.

"Genius is like a road trip to California.  It takes time." -Matthew Thomas

I feel like this is reminiscent of Utah Sports Bot.  Yes, we love sports.  Yes, we love the Jazz.  And yes, we waited until there's under 15 games left in the regular season to start our blog.  Why?  Well, Matt said it best.  Things of genius take time.  This being the case, it only seems appropriate to recap the Jazz's season thus far.

The Jazz had a decent off-season, drafting Gordon Hayward and Jeremy Evans, and picking up Al Jefferson.  But it's quite apparent that their biggest accomplishment pre-October was acquiring Matt Harpring as the co-play-by-play man (Keep in mind that the Jazz beat the Laker multiple times preseason as well.... despise Kobe, always).  His catchy phrases, knowledge, and overall knack for announcing has made even the toughest times for Jazz fans bearable.  Thanks Matt.

The Jazz started strong, finishing November 14-5.  Unfortunately, the Jazz would go 8-6, 7-9, 3-9 and 4-4 over the next four months, respectively (At least we didn't lose to Cleveland...haha Lakers).  Amidst all of this, our beloved Commander-in-Chief Jerry Sloan retired, and our best player Deron WIlliams was traded.  Although, he will be back as discussed in our previous post.
Sometimes being a Jazz fan isn't easy.  Having your heart ripped out night after night isn't fun.  Fortunately, things are looking up for our Jazz.  Devin Harris, C.J. Miles, Andrei Kirilenko, Derrick Favors, and Big Al look like the choice starting 5 for now, with Hayward, Raja, and others coming off the bench.  Don't forget Millsap, who we hope will be back soon, and Okur, if he ever gets healthy. On top of that, the Jazz have potentially three first round draft picks this coming draft, as well as our most expensive contract (overpaid Andrei Kirilenko - over 17 million a year) expiring.  What does this mean?  The Jazz could pick up another star or two or three to support our already developing team, not to mention Deron coming back soon...ha!  Lets just hope the Jazz make some better draft choices than those of the past.

Moral of the story, hang on Jazz fans.  The future is bright.
Some final thoughts...Jimmer Fredette is a robot.  He's like one of those aliens from Space Jam that stole the NBA player's talent.  No wonder Reggie Miller retired.  Robo-Jimmer stole his talent.  7 times yesterday we saw him activate his 3 point laser, the other 5 misses he was obviously toying his opponent.

Go Jazz, get us a win tonight!

It's all part of the plan...

One of the first theories that inspired us to start this blog was the idea of Deron Williams coming back. We weren't fast enough to get the blog up when the story was relevant, but today ESPN reported this story http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/nba/news/story?id=6235536 about Deron Williams possible sitting out the remainder of the year. As soon as I read it I knew this theory had to get put out there again. D-Will sitting out is all part of the plan to get us a lottery pick and get Williams back in 2012. The following is what we wrote back when the story was breaking-

It was a shock. Deron Williams traded to the Nets. At first, I was a bit disappointed, but I remembered that when Jerry Sloan left with rumors D-Will ran him out of town, I took Jerry’s side and was a bit bitter toward Williams. As the details of the trade unfolded, I was very happy. In my eyes, Deron was going to leave us because we weren’t building a team around him. Once free agency rolled around, he was gone. So, getting Harris, Favors, two first round picks, and cash was a great deal. But in reading various sports articles and the comments that followed, an idea surfaced that I feel is true. It was all a plot. Williams and the Jazz front office have this all planned out. Trade Deron for some missing pieces and draft picks, and when free agency come up in the summer of 2012, we re-sign him. It was a great idea, but as the days went on, it gained some validity. Deron himself said, “It all depends on how the next year goes.” He also said, “It's going to be a tough situation and it's going to be a tough year. There's so much that can go on between now and 2012 to even really discuss it…I won't know what I'm going to do until then ... So I can't give you guys an answer until then. The easiest way will just be to go out and play basketball and not worry about it." To USB, this translates to, “We just scammed Jersey, I’ll be back in Utah ASAP!” It’s no question that D-Will was getting on the Jazz fans’ bad side. What better way to win us over than to pull the greatest scam in sports history since the BCS? It’s a flawless plan, see you in 2012 D-Will! 

Welcome to UtahSportsBot!

Welcome to UtahSportsBot(as in Utah sports and robots, our two biggest material obsessions), hereafter USB. This is the official sports blog of Nathan F. and Douglas W. We wanted a place to express our opinions and views of the sports world as we see it. This is not ESPN. We are not professionals. We are fans though. We don’t care if you think we’re wrong, in some cases we probably will be. This will mostly be our opinion, so actually we’ll be right all the time because it’s our blog and our opinions. We welcome feedback and fun debates but this isn’t a place for arguments. So to start there are some things you need to know: We are Jazz fans, we love them with all our heart, even though they break them every year. We will always favor them. We have respect for some Eastern conference teams, but we hate every Western conference foe. Especially the Lakers. And the Spurs. And the Mavs. And Rockets. And the Nuggets. Anyway, we love the Jazz, and they can do no wrong here. Unless we say so.
We will also comment on other things, make up rumors, spread theories, and comment on the general sports scene as we see it. It’s kind of ironic that we named our blog after robots when the point of this blog is to break the cookie cutter world of sports commentary. We hope you enjoy the blog and that you love the Jazz as much as us, because enjoying this blog will be dependent on how you feel about the Jazz. They go hand in hand in this blog.
N8                          Doug E Fresh