I Know How to Spell

I saw the greatest quote on another site today:

"If minds had anuses, blogging would be what your mind would do when it had to take a dump. "

The best part is that this guy was obviously using it to put down bloggers, but I think that quote defines exactly why I write in this thing. It's not to share my opinions with others, it's not to make some money, it's not to hopefully get some fame someday. Sometimes my brain just needs to take a dump, and so I write a blog entry. It's very refreshing.

I'm now kind of embarrassed about this entry. Hopefully my grandmother never reads this.

It seems there is only so much Sports Talk Radio that a man can take. Even a sports-obsessed one like my own self. When the hosts harp on the same subject for weeks on end, it starts to get tiring. Especially when there is no new story to talk about and they keep repeating the same things over and over again.

So it is with the Utah Jazz and Carlos Boozer. Salt Lake Sports Talk Radio is absolutely obsessed with the man. He was supposed to be the second coming of Karl Malone (or so the media would have us believe) and he hasn't played a game for the Jazz since Valentine's Day. This story could have been properly rehashed maybe three times.

1. When he first got hurt
2. When we found out he would be out all season
3. When he got hurt again at the beginning of this year

And yet the media feels it necessary to bring this up once or twice a week, every week. And it is having a negative effect on the fans' state of mind. Today Ian Fitzsimmons had people call in to finish the sentence "Carlos Boozer is..." and people were saying "a bum", "overrated", etc. Some people think this man is faking his injury. It's an absolutely ridiculous concept that most people would never have thought of if the media hadn't brought it up as a possibility. Now, most of the radio guys seem to agree that he is legitimately hurt, but there are a select few who place doubt in the minds of their listeners.

And the part I am the most confused about are the people who say he is overrated and he wasn't playing well even when he wasn't hurt. And that's a ridiculous statement that no one would make if they actually remembered watching him play. The guy was averaging 18 points and nine rebounds a game. His scoring average has gone up every year, from 10 to 15.5 to 18. His rebounds dipped, but that's probably because there were more rebounders on the Jazz than on the Cavaliers. He shot 52% from the floor for Pete's sake! This is a good player.

People think he is overpaid for the numbers he is giving to the Jazz. Let's take a look at this rationally. Boozer is making $11,593,816 for the 05-06 year. Let's assume that he plays equally as well this year (once he returns) as he did last year (before he was injured). So we'll say 18 points and 9 rebounds a game. Let's compare that with other players making the same amount of money(or more) as Boozer.

Brian Grant (Suns) $16,128,428
- Best year (00-01) 15.2 points / 8.7 rebounds
- Last year 3.8 / 3.8
- This year injured

Jalen Rose (Raptors) $15,694,250
- Best year (02-03) 22 points / 4.3 rebounds
- This year 10.7 / 3.3

Tim Thomas (Bulls) $13,975,000
- Best year (03-04) 15 points / 5 rebounds
- This year 4.3 / 1.3

Antonio Davis (Knicks) $13,900,000
- Best year (01-02) 14.5 points / 9.6 rebounds
- This year 4.7 / 5.1

Admittedly, those are some clunkers, but it shows we are way too early in saying Boozer is overrated and overpaid. We can even look at some "stars" making similar money. Right now I bet tons of people would trade Boozer for Pau Gasol straight up. Let's look at his numbers:

Pau Gasol (Grizzlies) $10,967,500
- Best year (this year) 19.2 points / 9.1 rebounds

Looks pretty similar to Boozer's numbers. Elton Brand is having a career year so far, and is rightly considered one of the best in the NBA. His line?

Elton Brand (Clippers) $13,152,000
- Best year (03-04) 20 points / 10.3 rebounds
- Average over the past six years before this one 19.7 points / 10.5 rebounds

If Boozer improves somewhat this year (which he has done every year he's played), then he'll be right there. How about Rasheed Wallace?

Rasheed Wallace (Pistons) $10,260,000
- Best year (01-02) 19.3 points / 8.1 rebounds
- This year 14.3 / 6.3

Anyway, the points are these:

1. Carlos' numbers to date have been at least on par with his money-making peers.
2. Carlos is way too young for us to judge him as a star or as a bust
3. Carlos is legitimately injured
4. We will have to wait until we have two full seasons of a healthy Boozer before we pass judgement (unless he never has two full healthy seasons.......then he is a bum)

I truly believe that 3-4 years from now the Jazz will be one of the better teams in the Western Conference, with a starting five of Deron Williams, Mehmet Okur, Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer, and a shooting guard to be named later. At that point, as they are fighting for one of the top seeds in the west, we can all have a good laugh that we ever doubted Carlos Boozer to be anything less than a solid 20/10 every night. With a workman's ethic, strength and power, we'll be ever more excited for the years to come.

Until then, leave the poor guy alone, and we can all quit talking about him. Capisce?

This is a pretty cool idea. You write a novel in a month. It doesn't matter how crappy it is, you don't take time to look back over it and fix problems or anything like that. You just write. I think I'm going to try it. It started yesterday, so I'm a day behind. I'd better get going.

Before I start, I've got to make a confession. I'm a Utah Jazz fan. Living in Salt Lake City leaves me with only one real professional team (We'll see if the MLS team sticks). So I'm absolutely crazy about the Jazz. I'm a real homer, and so any discussion of the Jazz may or may not be coherent. Hopefully that doesn't infringe on the rest of my topics of discussion. Moving on.

On sports radio this week they've got a new contest going. "So You Think You Can Be a Radio Talk Show Host". Basically the idea is, you call in and rant for 60 seconds about something. If Ian Fitzsimmons gets through the 60 seconds without deciding you're an idiot, you move on to the next round. I kept listening to the guys calling in, as they all got blasted off the air (Most of them because they had obviously written down what they were going to say) and kept thinking I could do a better job than that.

However, I realized I probably couldn't do a better job than that. It sounds easy to just talk all day about sports, but I imagine it's like anything else, and practice makes pretty good. If you've never done it before, the chance of you sucking is high. So instead of embarrassing myself on AM radio, I'm just going to post here what I would have tried to say there. It should be more complete and coherent.

NBA PREVIEW

Last year I put together my predictions for the record of each team in the NBA. I saved it on my desktop in a little notebook file, and referred to it throughout the season to see how I did. Well, it wasn't spectacular. I nailed a few things, and missed some completely (Seattle, anyone?). But one thing I hit on the head was Chicago. Everyone was predicting Chicago to be a mediocre to bad team yet again. But I watched them in the Rocky Mountain Revue here in Salt Lake and saw they really cleaned up in the draft. I don't know how they managed to get Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, and Chris Duhon in one draft, but I was impressed. And so I put them at the 5 seed in the east last year. When they ended up at number 4, I was fairly pleased with myself, especially when I kept hearing people say things like "No one could have predicted the rise of the Bulls this year," yada yada.

Unfortunately I couldn't really prove it to anyone, because all I had was my stupid little notebook file. So I decided this year I'll put my predictions up on a blog. That way, if I am somehow lucky again and guess right on a team no one knew about, I'll have some proof. If only to make myself feel better.

And maybe to show my dad.

Anyway, on to the predictions, because if you are still reading this, you're probably just about to click away and find a non-rambling blog to get your NBA fix from. (caveat: I know I'm posting this after four games have already happened. But I'll try not to be swayed by them. Especially the beating New Orleans/Oklahoma City put on Sacramento. That's got to be a fluke, right?)

WESTERN CONFERENCE

I am sick and tired of hearing people gush over the Spurs this year. Yeah, they have the same team from last year, plus a few extra parts. Sure, they've got easily the most talented bench in the league. But there are reasons for concern.

1. Everyone thinks they will win. All 12 "experts" on ESPN.com picked the Spurs to go all the way. ALL 12! Why do they even have 12 if they're all going to tell us the same thing? And when is the last time a consensus preseason pick actually won a championship? (On second thought.....ok, we're not counting USC football)
   
2. It's been at least three years since having Nick Van Exel on your team was a good thing. He's been shown to be a team chemistry killer, and even with Officer Duncan patrolling, there could be trouble in the locker room here. Who knows how well Michael Finley will deal with being a backup as well? Everyone is saying the Heat won't be able to gel, why isn't anyone worried about the Spurs?
3. San Antonio has never one back to back championships. They always follow up the championship year with a fairly good, but not excellent year. I expect that to continue.

OK, let's move on. You'll probably laugh when you notice that I still have San Antonio picked to win the most games in the regular season. But I think this year will be more like two years ago, and they will get ousted in the conference finals. One other key piece of information to note: It's gonna be a Texas-dominated Western Conference. I think we can all agree on that.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

I can't tell you how much I like the Pacers this year. You'll see that I predict them to only be second in their division, with a 4 seed in the playoffs, but I think they will just start slow and then kick it into gear. This was a good team last year. They went 44-38, and gave Detroit a good run in the Conference Semifinals. All this without their best player, (with apologies to Jermaine O'Neal) Ron Artest. Now Ron is back, with something to prove. The team as a whole has more playoff experience, and plus they got Sarunas Jasikevicius, the best non-NBA player out there. This is a guy who knows how to win in the playoffs, something Indiana has lacked over the past few years. The only other Sarunas I could think of to play in the NBA was the great Sarunas Marciulionis, which bodes very well for these guys.

Detroit will give them trouble as always, and Miami is the most intriguing team, but they aren't made for playoff success, and LeBron is still a year or two away. I think this is Indiana's year.

Team Last Year's Record Predicted Record for this Year

Pacific Division
Phoenix 62-20 47-35
Golden State 34-48 45-37
Los Angeles Lakers 34-48 43-39
Sacramento 50-32 42-40
Los Angeles Clippers 37-45 36-46

Southwest Division
San Antonio 59-23 60-22
Houston 51-31 56-26
Dallas 58-24 53-29
Memphis 45-37 38-44
New Orleans/Oklahoma City 18-64 27-55


Northwest Division
Denver 49-33 53-29
Minnesota 44-38 48-34
Utah 26-56 42-40
Seattle 52-30 35-47
Portland 27-55 20-62

Atlantic Division
New Jersey 42-40 48-34
Philadelphia 43-39 43-39
Boston 45-37 42-40
New York 33-49 39-43
Toronto 33-49 15-67

Central Division
Detroit 54-28 55-27
Indiana 44-38 55-27
Cleveland 42-40 48-34
Milwaukee 30-52 43-39
Chicago 47-35 39-43

Southeast Division
Miami 59-23 54-28
Washington 45-37 37-45
Charlotte 18-64 28-54
Orlando 36-46 23-59
Atlanta 13-69 16-66

OK, so I'm still working on this formatting thing. We'll call this post good for today, and maybe I'll elaborate on my playoff predictions another day. If I feel like it.

Thanks for reading this far.

I just realized that I'm setting myself up for failure by titling my blog "I Know How to Spell". If I actually begin to get readers I'm going to have to deal with smarmy comments every time I misspell a word. Oh well, since I'm not expecting any visitors, I guess I'll cross that bridge if and when I get there.

Anyway, turns out I've discovered myself a new mantra that will apply to my spelling as well. "Practice makes Pretty Good." So I'm just gonna go with that, and not fret about it.