‘JR and Mrs.’

Well, Mrs. Jazz and I are back from some fun vacation time, and the Jazz are back to their winning ways, with a win streak of one game and a Turkey Day mini vacation to rest up.

What sort of a league ranking should we give the Jazz after 12 games?

Let’s look at the 8 games they’ve won.

Golden State (2 wins), a playoff team last year, are definitely missing Jason ‘Jazz Killer’ Richardson, traded to the Bobcats for monetary reasons. They were also short one ‘Felonious’ Jackson, THE SHOOTING guard, serving a virtual sentence, issued by Judge Stern. Nellie ball just couldn’t make up the difference with the Jazz, or any other teams for that matter, until Felonious got rid of his ankle bracelet and recently returned.
Cleveland, a NBA finalist last year (wouldn’t that have been a great finals match up, if the Jazz could have beaten the Spurs!) were missing restricted free agents ‘Sideshow Bob’ Varejao and ‘Sausage’ Pavlovic, doing their best impressions of a C. J. Miles holdout, but during the regular season. The Jazz squeaked it out by just 2 points.
Seattle, a basement dweller and scheduled to repeat, with 4 players sidelined, came within 2 of the Jazz.
Memphis was another subterranean life form, which the Jazz should have beaten easily, at home, and they did.
Sacramento, a lotto team with 3 starters out, was an easy win.
Toronto, a Leastern playoff team, was an ugly win, but a road win, none the less!
New Jersey, a playoff team last year, but questionable this year, even in the Leastern Conference, playing without Vinsanity, looked just horrible. The Jazz beat them like a proverbial drum. The Nets could be playing the worst basketball in the league right now.

Let’s look at their 4 losses.
Houston, a playoff, and possible title contender, was the Tracy McGrady show and the Ming Dynasty prevailed.
Lakers, looking like a playoff team again, despite their petulant child and the havoc he caused, easily beat the Jazz, even without Odom.
Cleveland, with the Sausage back in the fold, but still no Sideshow Bob, beat the Jazz, with King James doing one of his better Kobe impressions.
Indiana, with one of the poorest records in the NBA, had no problem with the Jazz.

Most of our 8 victories came at the expense of lower echelon teams or teams with depleted rosters. There were no real title contenders, no real quality wins. But, the Jazz got 8 wins! They caught teams at the right time. Still, 8-4 is a very good record, and they’re 50% on the road!

Our 4 losses were to a contender, a couple of probable playoff teams and a bottom dweller, but 3 of the 4 were road losses.

The Jazz have been healthy during this span of games. Oh, I know Harpring played in a wheelchair the first few games, and then on crutches, but I think his defense did improve, while he was playing on crutches, especially when used them to trip players going to the hole.

If the Jazz can stay healthy and continue to play at a 66% clip for the rest of the season, it will be a great year, about 54 wins, but when we start playing the better teams and have our share of injuries, I doubt we’ll break into the 50’s.

AK-47 is playing like the Swiss Army Knife. Booze and D-Wil continue All Star play. Memo is starting to play a little more like Money. Brewer has been a pleasant surprise. Millsap just continues his solid play.

Their offense is great, when they execute. Their defense still looks like a bunch of toreadors waving their capes at a herd of bulls (not the Chicago variety, at least not yet).

Sloan is getting sooo smooth, his interviews are even starting to sound like Pat ‘Slick’ Riley. I’m just waiting for Jerry to apply the black shoe polish and axle grease to his hair and comb it back during a time out.

I would rank the Jazz at about 11, out of the 30 teams.

Where would you rank them?

Jazzaholic, aka, J R Stewart