Showing posts with label Basketball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Basketball. Show all posts
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Bing AI predicts the 2023 NBA Draft
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
The Bitter Pill 4: Another Playoff Choke
It's a well-documented fact that I am cursed as a sports fan. Cursed as a human, really, because I discovered at a very young age that I like sports. And sports end in disappointment 99 percent of the time. In my 34 years of life, sports teams for which I have an active rooting interest have won championships two times:
Oh, and then there was Real Salt Lake, which won the Major League Soccer Cup in 2009, and although that's my local soccer team, I wouldn't classify myself as an actual fan because I rarely watch them play.
The University of Utah beat Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl, but I didn't start attending The U until that fall, so I wasn't technically a student at that point.
I became a fan of the Texas Rangers the year after they lost in two consecutive World Series, and they haven't come close to making it back any time since then, 10 years ago. However, Rougned Odor landed a really solid punch on Jose Bautista in 2016, which was cool.
I stopped cheering for the Chicago Cubs after following them for my entire childhood about two or three years before they finally won a World Series. It got to a point when I just couldn't handle all the losing anymore.
Of course, there are my beloved Utah Jazz, which lost to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls in back-to-back NBA championships, but that's another story for another time.
"This Could Be the Year"
This year, I really thought the Jazz had a chance to go all the way. I really, truly did. There was a stretch of the season where we won, like, 23 straight home games, I think, and we were just blowing fools out by 20 points every night. It was so much fun to watch. Honestly, if the Jazz didn't go up by 20 at some point in the game, it was almost disappointing to me. I remember that there was a point in time - I think it was February 25 or something? - where I actually had the thought, "This could be the year."
Yikes. For the first time in my life, I actually thought those words.
But can you blame me? The Jazz were the best team in the National Basketball Association for nearly the entire 2020-21 season, finishing with the outright best record in the league for the first time in franchise history. This earned them the #1 seed for the playoffs and home court advantage throughout.
There was some speculation and discussion about whether the Jazz would keep playing hard through the end of the season to clinch that top seed - and whether they even should. It sometimes becomes a controversial strategy for teams to "tank" (intentionally lose games) to position themselves in a favorable postseason matchup, sometimes to the ire of basketball fans. Such was not the case for this year's Utah Jazz; I was proud to see that we kept fighting to the very end, securing the best record by a half game over the Phoenix Suns.
I thought, if nothing else, we could hang our proverbial hat on the fact that we were, statistically, the best team in the league this year. We played really well all season - despite nagging injuries to several key players - had three All-Stars for the first time since the 1980s, and ultimately had a Coach of the Year finalist in Quin Snyder; two finalists for Sixth Man of the Year, Joe Ingles and eventual winner Jordan Clarkson; and the now-three-time Defensive Player of the Year, Rudy Gobert. Without a doubt, this regular season was one for the record books. And it felt good. Really good.
The Injury Bug Strikes... But Would it Even Matter?
One of the few major concerns, heading into the playoffs, were injuries to the Jazz's two most important offensive players: Donovan Mitchell, who missed the last 16 games of the regular season due to ankle pain; and Mike Conley, whose recurring hamstring soreness kept him in and out of action throughout some stretches of the regular season and forced him to miss Game 1 of the first round, against his former team, the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Jazz would go on to lose Game 1 against Memphis, at home, which was quite disconcerting. In my mind, Memphis was a great matchup for the Jazz; we beat them three times in a six-day span during the regular season (no exaggeration), but my prediction of a four-game sweep in the first round did not come to pass..
But Conley returned for Game 2, and the Jazz beat Memphis four straight times, eliminating the Grizzlies in five games. Because that matchup ended earlier than other Western Conference series, the Jazz were forced to wait six days for the winner of the Clippers-Mavericks series. Ultimately, the nationally acclaimed Los Angeles Clippers moved on, which didn't scare me at all. The talking heads on sports radio love teams from big markets like L.A. and always favor them in the postseason, so their words meant nothing to me.
Unlike the Jazz, the Clippers tanked their final few games of the regular season - most likely to avoid having to play their rivals, the Lakers, in the first round - and it took them a full seven-game series to squeak past the Dallas. Well, the Jazz were clearly a better team than the Mavericks in the regular season, so I figured the Jazz would win the second round series convincingly, in five or six games, and move on to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2009.
Meanwhile, LeBron James' Los Angeles Clippers got ousted in the first round by the 2-seed Phoenix Suns, which was hilarious, and the Golden State Warriors didn't even make the playoffs this season, so things were looking really good for the Jazz. Certainly, a Utah/Phoenix showdown in the Western Conference Finals was imminent.
The Jazz won the first two games against the Clippers, thanks to some incredible offensive performances by Donovan Mitchell and a Game 1-winning block by Rudy Gobert. What was better? The Jazz had done it without Mike Conley even lacing up his high-tops. The hamstring injury keep him sidelined for the first two games and, thankfully, it didn't hurt us. I did get a bit concerned, though, when Paul George collided with Donovan with seven seconds left in a game that was already out of reach for the Clippers. The game was all but over, yet there was our superstar, writing on the ground in pain. Donovan went down hard and looked like his ankle was really bothering him. However, he'd have a couple days to rest up and we'd be all right. Tired bodies notwithstanding, we were up 2-0 and things were looking good.
With injuries piling up for the remaining teams around the league, if we could just get our guys back up to full strength, we'd have an amazing chance at making a run to the Finals, and our best shot, arguably, ever to actually win it. "Rest up, boys," I pleaded, "and take care of business."
There Was No Way the Clippers Would Beat Us... Right??
Two games in, I was very excited. All I wanted was a split of the next two games in Los Angeles, and the Jazz would finish it off in five games, I told myself. There was no way the Clippers would beat this Jazz team four times out of the next five games. Not a chance.
The series shifted to Hollywood, and the Jazz got thumped in Game 3. It was ok, I thought. In fact, I wasn't even stressed at all! Just win Game 4 and bring it back home to close it out. Easy.
Game 4 was ugly. Conley remained out due to injury, and the Jazz just couldn't figure it out. The series came back to Utah, tied 2-2. The Jazz came out on fire in the first half. Bojan Bogdonavic seemingly could not miss. The Jazz shot upwards of 60 percent from the field in the first 24 minutes. But we went into halftime with a measly five-point lead. Shooting the way we did, you would have thought we'd be up by double digits, at least. Coming back out in the second half, it was like we forgot how to put the ball in the hoop. The Clippers kept pouring on the offense and the Jazz couldn't get any stops. We lost Game 5 in front of our notoriously loud home crowd and would have to head back to California for Game 6 with our backs against the wall.
Spoiler: Game 6 was very similar to Game 5. The Jazz came out blistering hot. I even tweeted, "The Jazz are not messing around." We built a 25-point lead at one point. It was glorious. "Stomp the throat," I texted my family. Just keep the pedal to the metal and bring it back home for Game 7. In the second half, however, the Jazz made some very interesting defensive decisions. And when I say that, I mean that we, for some dang reason, chose to let a Clippers player stand wide open in the corner on every single play. It's ok to do that sometimes if the guy you're leaving open can't shoot. But guess what? The Clippers COULD. NOT. MISS. They should have called me up and put me in because I totally would have stood in that corner with my hands up. That's more than anybody on the court was doing!
The villain this time around was not Michael Jordan. It wasn't even Denver Nuggets stars Jamal Murray or Nikola Jokic, like it was last season WHEN THE JAZZ BLEW A 3-1 LEAD. I DIDN'T EVEN BLOG ABOUT THAT ONE! No, no. It was some dude named Terance Mann. Like, I honestly didn't even know who this guy was a couple weeks ago. But we left him open time and time and time and time and time again and he lit us up for a career high 39 points. That's more points than he ever even scored in a college game. Now, the Jazz are notorious for letting random no-name players get career highs, but in an elimination game with our season - and possibly an NBA championship - on the line?!? Terance Mann?? He only missed six shots in the entire game, and he was shooting a lot. That's an incredible night, no matter who you are. And we let him absolutely wreck us.
Needless to say, the Jazz lost their fourth straight game to these Clippers -- a game in which their best player, Kawhi Leonard, did not even play, mind you! -- and we got bounced from the playoffs.
Let this sink in: we played our butts off in the regular season got beaten in the second round by a team that tanked, heading into the playoffs. Ugh. So dumb.
Also frustrating: we were back, somewhat, at full strength for Game 6, in the sense that Mike and Donovan were both playing, but you could tell that Mike was kind of just going through the motions (bless him for even trying), and Donovan looked like he was maybe 70 or 80 percent healthy at best for the final two or three games of the series.
And we lost to a team led by freaking Paul George (who will go down as the second most overrated first-ballot Hall of Famer of all time, next to Tracy McGrady) and some dude named Terance Mann, who won't even be in the league anymore in three years. Mark my words on that one. Why. Why does this happen.
Editor's note: Terance Mann had a whopping 9 points in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.
I was basically furious, but I held it together because this is just the kind of thing that the Jazz do, every single year. I even predicted it on two separate occasions, earlier that day. "Double-digit Jazz loss." I knew it was going to happen, and then it did.
Oh, What Could Have Been...
Of all the years for us to choke, why did it have to be this year? No LeBron, no Steph Curry, home court advantage all the way... This was our year! After all the bull crap we had to go through when Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 last season, resulting in the complete shut-down of sports in North America... In a year where a flock of birds hit the team's charter plane and caused them to make an emergency landing... In a year where LeBron and Kevin Durant openly mocked the Utah Jazz during the selection of All-Star teams... Man, there should have been such an incredible "30 For 30" documentary about this team. "The Team of Destiny," they would have called us. The team that defied all odds and all the hate and disbelief from the national media. That should have been us. That should have been this year. The path was practically paved in gold.
Phoenix would have been tough, but the league ruled Chris Paul out for (so far) at least Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals for COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and the Suns without CP3 did not worry me. The only two teams I really didn't want to face late in the playoffs were Philadelphia and Brooklyn, both of which were eliminated in the Eastern Conference within days of the Jazz losing. If we could have made it to the championship, we would have gone up against either Milwaukee or Atlanta (the two teams currently facing off in the Eastern Conference Finals). Man, that would have been perfect. Could have been Jazz in five. Sickening. Soul-shattering for lifelong fans like me.
It's just so frustrating to spend all season watching the games - and I try not to miss many games, if we're playing well, which we were! - and to pour in countless hours of my attention, then have them rip my stupid heart out and stomp on it over and over again.
Why didn't the Jazz make the appropriate defensive adjustments in the second half of those second-round games? How could they play so well in the first two quarters, then just abruptly stop making threes? Why couldn't the injuries to our star players have come at the beginning of the season, not at the end of it? Couldn't we channel that mid-season magic one more time and run a string of eight or 10 consecutive home victories? Is any of that too much to ask?
Pain. It's just... pain.
As my friend Scott Aylett and I discussed after the abrupt end to the Jazz's season, there are a million things that would be more satisfying than to get emotionally invested in sports ever again. We could stare at the wall and watch paint dry. We could go kick some dirt around for 15 minutes, which could possibly provide some unexpected joy. There are movies and TV shows and video games and books out there that will give a tremendous amount more satisfaction in a two-hour span than can ever be felt at the end of a basketball season.
Why was I cursed to be this way? Why must I continue to follow sports, year after year? How could I be so foolish?
It sucks to think it, but maybe it's true: if the Jazz couldn't get it done this year, with everything we had going for us, maybe it's never going to happen at all.
Yet, will I keep watching? Of course. What kind of a stupid question is that?
Death, Taxes and Eternal Sadness
I used to joke that 80 percent of the sadness in my life came from being a sports fan, and the other 20 percent came from women, but I'm married now, which means that sports account for all of the sadness I experience, and that's a straight-up fact. It's a painful, painful life that I've chosen.
All I can hope now is that I am reincarnated as a non-sports fan in my next life. Or as a monkey. That might be kind of exciting, too.
*****
Related Blogs:
If, for some sick and twisted reason, you kept reading until the end of this blog and thought it was funny and/or entertaining, first of all, how dare you take joy in my pain? Second of all, you might find these other blogs interesting:
- The Bitter Pill: My worst sports memories
- Another Bitter Pill: Kobe drops 60 against the Jazz
- #Betrayward: Too Big Yo [for his britches]
- The Bitter Pill 3: The Pass Interference Special
Thanks for reading... and I'll most likely talk to you at the end of next season.
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
The Jazz just lost - and that's ok
The Past
When Gordon Hayward ruined our Fourth of July by announcing that he was leaving the Jazz high and dry in favor of joining the Boston Celtics and his boyfriend/college coach, Brad Stevens, I was furious. I even blogged about it. We begged the fool to stay and he left us anyway. Austin blogged about that. National media ridiculed us, spat in our faces and left us for dead. It was widely presumed that the Jazz would have a good defense, but no offense to go along with it. People said we wouldn't make the playoffs. Best-case scenario, I figured we could still make the playoffs as the Eight Seed, and I tried to talk myself into believing that we would be fine without Hayward.
Before Gordon took the wussy way out, the Jazz made some acquisitions to try to keep the first-time All-Star happy. We traded for the flashy Spanish point guard, Ricky Rubio. We picked up a couple other middle-of-the-road journeymen in Thabo Sefolosha, Jonas Jerebko and Epke Udoh. But with Gordon delaying (and absolutely botching) his decision for so long, we lost out on the opportunity to pick up anybody to replace him as the go-to scorer. We would likely have to rely on up-and-comer Rodney Hood to take the torch and lead the way, moving forward.
Elsewhere in The Association, there were some other big moves during the offseason, and most of the NBA's prominent talent came out west. Perennial Eastern Conference All-Star Jimmy Butler headed to Minnesota and Oklahoma City formed what people were calling "the next Big Three" when they acquired Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, to go along with reigning MVP Russell Westbrook. In my opinion, the 2017-18 Midwest Division looked like the toughest division, arguably, in the history of the NBA (and, in the end, it was). (It is also of note that, although he didn't switch conferences, Chris Paul left the crumbling LA Clippers - demoralized after being knocked out of he playoffs by last year's Jazz team - and joined James Harden and the Houston Rockets. With the loss of Hayward and stiffened competition in our neck of the woods, this was going to be a really tough year for the boys from Salt Lake City.
Nevertheless, we embarked on a journey that began with the Summer League, where we got our first look at the new rookie - a kid out of Louisville named Donovan Mitchell. He was outspokenly a defense-first guard who was excited to make some plays - and he did during one incredible sequence where he put Celtics rookie Jason Tatum on his backside before dishing to ball off for a slam dunk. Little did we know what this defense-first guard would turn out to be. More on that later.The Present
The very first memory I have of the 2017 NBA season is getting a text from my good friend and long-time Jazz fan "Pistol" Steve Roush. The text said, "OH MY GOSH!!!" I was watching playoff baseball at the time, so I didn't know what he was referring to. "Are you watching this?" he asked. I surmised that he was talking about the Cavaliers-Celtics game, which I had some morbid curiosity about, but I couldn't bear to watch Hayward in Boston green. "Hayward just broke his leg." I didn't believe it. But it was true. Just minutes into his Celtics debut, Gordon Hayward's season was over. Ironic. That's all I'm going to say. Ironic. He would spend the entire season in hospital beds and physical therapy and won't be back until next season. I still can't believe it.
I was in attendance for the first Jazz game of the season. Rodney Hood was scheduled to start, but was a late scratch and had to be filled in for by none other than our rookie, Donovan Mitchell. The season started out rough for Donovan, who really struggled shooting the ball for the first few games. I tried to be patient with him, chalking it up to being a "learning experience" for a rookie we hoped would be able to contribute this season.
Watching Donovan fill in for Rodney would end up being somewhat representative of the season as a whole. Rodney was not able to fill the shoes we intended for him and had a very tough time staying consistent on the offensive end. One night, he'd go for 30 points, then he wouldn't be able to buy a bucket for the next week. As he had been previously in his career, he was quite injury-prone, and it got to the point where some Jazz fans questioned his toughness - physically and mentally. It felt as though Rodney didn't want to play unless he was at 100% health. It was frustrating to watch.
But while Rodney struggled and Ricky Rubio took time to adjust to his new team and offensive schemes, Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles and the rookie himself, Donovan Mitchell, picked up the slack under the brilliant leadership of Quin Snyder.
Rudy Gobert remained a force to be reckoned with on the defensive end, maintaining his reputation as one of the best defensive stars in basketball. By the end of the year, he would be the front-runner for Defensive Player of the Year. However, several injuries sidelined Rudy for large stretches of the season, and without him, the Jazz really struggled. After an ugly loss to Atlanta (our second defeat at the hands of the lowly Hawks), the Jazz fell to 19-28. I was ready to call it a season and the #TankNote movement gained steam. It looked like this would end up being one of those infamous "rebuilding years" that would be used primarily for the development of future talent. But a tweet from the Stifle Tower turned this season completely around with four simple words:We will be fine— Rudy Gobert (@rudygobert27) January 6, 2018
The Jazz finished the season by going 29-6, finishing as the Five Seed with a 48-34 record and stringing together one of the most impressive win streaks in Jazz franchise history. Notably, we beat the defending champion Golden State Warriors by 20, 30 and 40 points this season. Incredible! #NeverForget! Nobody saw that turnaround coming - and what was even better was the individual progress that we got along with it.
We watched Donovan develop before our eyes and marveled as he dunked on Lonzo Ball and put up 41 points against the Pelicans during his second month in the league. (Fun fact: Gordon Hayward's career high is 40 points.) He would ultimately end up winning the Western Conference Rookie of the Month award for December, January, February and March. He won the Dunk Contest during All-Star Weekend. He would become one of the most talked-about players in the entire league over the course of the season and was the focus of the hottest basketball debate of the year as he and Philadelphia's Ben Simmons were neck-and-neck in Rookie of the Year discussions. Donovan set Jazz rookie records. He etched his name into the Top Three and Top Five of NBA rookie records.
We watched Donovan develop before our eyes and marveled as he dunked on Lonzo Ball and put up 41 points against the Pelicans during his second month in the league. (Fun fact: Gordon Hayward's career high is 40 points.) He would ultimately end up winning the Western Conference Rookie of the Month award for December, January, February and March. He won the Dunk Contest during All-Star Weekend. He would become one of the most talked-about players in the entire league over the course of the season and was the focus of the hottest basketball debate of the year as he and Philadelphia's Ben Simmons were neck-and-neck in Rookie of the Year discussions. Donovan set Jazz rookie records. He etched his name into the Top Three and Top Five of NBA rookie records.
THIS KID IS SPECIAL.
I'm not sure we truly realize nor fully appreciate what we have on our hands with Donovan. He is humble. He is gracious. He is a hardcore mama's boy who loves his family. He loves Utah. He has friends in the league. He is sought out after games by the biggest names in the league, including LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Chris Paul, just to name a few. THIS NEVER HAPPENS. Not in Utah, it doesn't. BUT IT IS HAPPENING! Most impressively of all, possibly, is the fact that we did all of this without Gordon Hayward. If Hayward had stayed, who knows if Donovan would have been able to shine like this? In the state of Utah, Donovan Mitchell can do no wrong. I once saw a tweet saying that we would let him walk into the Salt Lake Temple without a recommend. I don't entirely disagree. He is making the Utah Jazz popular again. We've got a little bandwagon following right now, and, as a lifelong Jazz fan, that was something I never would have thought would happen. I want to invite Donovan over for dinner. Also, side note, my mother has given me permission to marry him....
...
To break up that awkwardness, can I just say that I actually really ended up loving the Jazz "City Edition" jerseys that I thought were frighteningly ugly at first? And that court, too. Dang. So great.
Anyway, "Jingling" Joe Ingles had a breakout year. He became a legit starter in the league (not just some guy that we used to fill a position) and was a league leader in field goal percentage from beyond the arc. He broke the Jazz single-season record for three pointers made. His personality shined as he trash-talked his competition and drew many an Office comparison. The guys on "Inside the NBA" sure seem to like him.
Royce O'Neale was an undrafted free agent and ended up becoming a pivotal piece of the roster. Jerebko and Sefolosha were much better than I anticipated (although Thabo spent most of the season on the injured list). We got to watch David Stockton, the son of the G.O.A.T. John Stockton finish the season with the team. Raul Neto and Dante Exum were able to step up and fill in when necessary, and we even saw the Magic Man Alec Burks play some important minutes here in the past few weeks.
As for Rodney Hood, we traded him to Cleveland for Jae Crowder. Jae was consistently named the fabled Subway Sub of the Game, leading the bench in scoring in almost every game he played. Rodney, on the other hand, made headlines this week by refusing to come off the bench during "garbage time" as the Cavs swept the One Seed Raptors to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Oh, what could have been...
Royce O'Neale was an undrafted free agent and ended up becoming a pivotal piece of the roster. Jerebko and Sefolosha were much better than I anticipated (although Thabo spent most of the season on the injured list). We got to watch David Stockton, the son of the G.O.A.T. John Stockton finish the season with the team. Raul Neto and Dante Exum were able to step up and fill in when necessary, and we even saw the Magic Man Alec Burks play some important minutes here in the past few weeks.As for Rodney Hood, we traded him to Cleveland for Jae Crowder. Jae was consistently named the fabled Subway Sub of the Game, leading the bench in scoring in almost every game he played. Rodney, on the other hand, made headlines this week by refusing to come off the bench during "garbage time" as the Cavs swept the One Seed Raptors to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Oh, what could have been...
The Playoffs
Finishing as the fifth seed in the Western Conference meant that we would start the first round on the road against Oklahoma City. There were two teams I didn't want to play in the playoffs, and OKC was one of them. Their first season as a so-called "superteam" didn't go as well as I think many people hoped it would, but we struggled when we played them three times at the beginning of the season. I didn't think it was a great match-up, and I thought that there were several other teams in the West that the Jazz could have disposed of quite easily. Nonetheless, we got our assignment, the team packed their collective bags, and the postseason was underway.
We got walloped in Game 1, as Paul George went off for 36 points and led the Thunder to a 1-0 series lead. It was not the start that I was hoping for, but I figured if we could get a split and win the next game, we would be ok. We did just that, tying the series at one game a piece and heading back home for Game 3. We played really well against the Thunder - surprisingly well - and we beat them in six games, despite blowing a 25-point lead in Game 5. We beat the self-proclaimed "OK3," just like we beat "Lob City" last year. It was beautiful, and Oklahoma City will never be the same. What's more, this was Ricky Rubio's first playoff appearance of his career and he looked like he was having the time of his life. I was so happy for him.
In the second round, we matched up with the best team in the league, the Houston Rockets, in what was ultimately a pretty lopsided series. The Rockets handed it to us for the majority of the time, but we did win Game 2 on the road, which I thought was totally awesome. The entire country basically assumed we would get swept, including Charles Barkley, who made a bold prediction before we stole the second game in Houston:
— Aaron Christensen (@atownmania) May 3, 2018
Eat your words, Chuck!
The Jazz ended up losing the series last night, four games to one, but I couldn't be prouder of these guys. We fought through adversity, negative and, oftentimes, no media coverage, a slew of injuries and pretty much anything else you could possibly imagine, and ended up having a way better season than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.
If you would have told me on July 5, 2017, that the Jazz would have leading candidates for Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, that we would finish fifth in the West (just like last year), that we would dismantle Oklahoma City and its superteam and that we'd steal a game on the road in the second round against the best team in the league - without our starting point guard playing a single game in the second round -- all the while being led by a rookie -- and (most shockingly) that I would not have missed Gordon AT ALL, well... well, you could have just slapped my phone and called me Robyn Hayward.
The Future
The tough thing about sports is that you almost never get to end your season on a positive note. Only one team ends up winning the championship, and everybody else loses. My Utah Jazz haven't been back to the Finals since 1998. It's been 20 long years, people!! But last night, as I watched the Jazz put up a fight that nearly brought the series back to Utah for Game 6, I couldn't have been any happier. We weren't supposed to beat the Rockets. Heck, we weren't even supposed to be there. It was a pleasure to watch this team. It was a roller coaster of a season, but that stretch of wins after the second Atlanta loss was preposterously fun. Remember that stretch when every team was trying to fight us?
Speaking of which, remember that time when I tweeted at Jimmy Butler and went viral? Oh man, good times.
Classy tweet from a dude that was too hungover to play in the All-Star Game.— Aaron Christensen (@atownmania) March 3, 2018
This season, the Jazz became must-see TV for me, and I had no problem penciling them in for nearly every single game.
Now that the season is over, my schedule frees up considerably and much of the worry and stress in my life is done, which is really nice - not gonna lie. I don't have to watch another second of this postseason if I don't want to (and I really don't want to... I just hope the Warriors humiliate that flopper James Harden and his whiny little midget friend Chris Paul in the Western Conference Finals).
Whereas last season ended with Jazz fans chanting Gordon Hayward's name and helplessly pleading with him to stay in Utah, this season ended with Jazz fans chanting Ricky Rubio's name while he posted a triple-double against Russell Westbrook and with NBA fans - from all different teams - tweeting about Donovan Mitchell's gutsy 22-point third quarter as the team tried to stave off elimination. Instead of worrying about the future like last year, I look forward to it. We have a great core for the roster that sets us up to be one of the best teams in the league next year. And how can you not just love these players? They have been so fun. I think that our likability factor, with young, talented guys like Ricky and Rudy and a lovable kid like Donovan Mitchell leading the way, we just might be able to attract some big names to come play in Salt Lake City in the future.
We've got a good thing going and it won't be stopping here. We'll be back in the Western Conference Semi-finals, with an even better chance of knocking off our opponents for a chance to play for that conference championship. It will happen. And it's all going to happen much sooner than anyone could have predicted.
Thank you, Utah Jazz, for an incredible season. We love you boys and are so proud of the work you put in this year. We'll see you next season, and I've got a feeling that we will be fine after all.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Another Bitter Pill: Kobe drops 60 against the Jazz
I wrote a blog last fall called "The Bitter Pill: My Worst Sports Memories." In it, I recounted the most terrible things that have ever happened to me, as a life-long sports fan. Last night, on April 13, 2016, it happened again.
I really thought the Utah Jazz were going to make the NBA playoffs this year. We've been in "rebuild mode" for a few years now, but I feel like this group - built around Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, Rudy Gobert, Rodney Hood and Alec Burks - is a pretty decent young team. We finished the 2014-15 season on a high note, missing the playoffs, but going on a run down the stretch that had me excited for the 2015 campaign to start up.
Things took a hit before we could even get the train rolling this year, as our supposed "point guard of the future," Dante Exum, suffered a season-ending injury while playing in the off-season in his native Australia. That was just the beginning, really, as 2015 turned out to be an injury plagued year for many of our core players. Alec Burks broke his leg, Rudy Gobert sprained his MCL, Derrick Favors hurt his back... It was not a healthy year for us.
Despite the injuries, we were able to hang in there (thanks in some part to a "down year" in the Western Conference - only Golden State, San Antonio and Oklahoma City stood out as dominant teams) and we were fighting for our postseason lives to the bitter end, so to speak. With only a few games to play, Utah, Dallas and Houston were jockeying for the seventh and eighth playoff spots in the West. With a few games left, all the Jazz needed to do, simply put, was win their games. After a truly unfortunate loss to an almost entirely depleted Los Angeles Clippers team, the Jazz had three games to play and really needed to "win out" in order to make the playoffs. We beat the Nuggets soundly in Denver and approached the most important game of the year: a showdown between the then-sixth-seeded Dallas Mavericks.
I was at the Jazz-Mavericks game in Salt Lake City on Monday. I was pumped. I don't believe Dallas is that good this year and I thought that, with our playoff hopes on the line, the Jazz would step it up, rise to the occasion and bring us a sweet, sweet victory. Uh. Yeah. About that... It didn't happen. We looked terrible, couldn't hit uncontested shots and lost by nine. It was worse than it sounds. With a minute to play, I thought to myself that, if they needed a good reaction shot for TV, I'd be the poster boy for the "man, it sucks to be a Jazz fan right now" expression. Houston won that night, meaning that, in order to make the playoffs, we'd need to beat the Lakers in L.A. and we'd also need the Rockets to lose to the hapless Sacramento Kings at home. I'd later discover that Sacramento wasn't even sending four or five of their key players on the trip. In other words, we were done for. We wouldn't be making the playoffs yet again and our season was, effectively, over. My thoughts proved prophetic, as the Rockets thrashed the Kings last night before our 8:30 battle with the Lakers had even tipped.
So that was it. It was over. We had nothing to play for. I just hoped our players didn't know that.
It's here that our story really gets exciting. You see, unless you've been hiding under a rock somewhere for the past six or seven months, you're well aware that this was Kobe Bryant's final season in the NBA. After a 20-year career, he was calling it quits and hanging up the Nikes. Finally, for the first time in two decades, it seemed like Kobe was actually being a nice guy. This year, he was respectful with the media, kind to the fans and seemed, for once, to actually be a nice guy. He was smiling more, he looked like he was relaxed and, you know what? He almost seemed likable!
Wait, wait. What am I saying? This is Kobe Bryant we're talking about. The Kobe Bryant that had been a bitter rival of my Utah Jazz since those infamous playoff airballs in his 1997 rookie season. This is the guy that knocked the Jazz out of the playoffs three years in a row. This is the guy that waived Karl Malone off for a pick during an All-Star game. While I do admit that "NBA Courtside 2 featuring Kobe Bryant" was an awesome game on Nintendo 64 and that "Afro Kobe" was an exciting player to watch as I grew up, this guy, ultimately, was the arrogant, cocky jerk that I'd come to hate since my childhood. And now he was playing the final game of his career against the Utah Jazz. At long last, we would get the last laugh and send Kobe packing for good. Heck, the previous time we faced the Lakers this season, we beat them by 48 - the worst loss of Kobe's entire career. It was glorious.
My family is full of big-time Jazz fans. I told my mom yesterday afternoon that we should beat the Lakers by 35 points - 15 points, minimum. I told my dad and brother, Austin, that losing to this Lakers team would be almost unforgivable. Let me clarify - these are not your daddy's Los Angeles Lakers. These Lakers SUCK. They entered last night's game with a 16-65 record - the worst in their franchise's history. I almost felt bad that Kobe was being sent out with such horrendous, lazy teammates. Almost. But it was Kobe and I hate him and I loved that the Lakers had become one of the laughing stocks of the league. Surely, we'd beat them. Maybe we'd let Kobe have a little fun, but there was no way we'd lose to this team, regardless of playoff implications.
The Lakers Kobe kept things close early, taking full responsibility of his team's scoring (and shooting) efforts for the first half. The Jazz weren't playing very well initially, but we eventually pulled ahead by a dozen or so and I remember commenting to my mom, with whom I was watching the game, that it looked like we were finally going to blow them away, much to the dismay of the celebrities in attendance.
The world was watching, certainly.
Rumor has it that the worst seats in the house were going for $800 and those who wanted to sit courtside were paying, allegedly, 20 times that much. Ridiculous, if you ask me, but whatever. Their money, not mine. Good for them.
As the game went on, it was evident to even the least knowledgeable of viewers that Kobe (as was often the case for most of his career) had no intention of passing. Basically, the other four Lakers on the court at any given time were tasked with two or three responsibilities: get the ball to Kobe, get the heck out of the way and rebound it if he misses. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Let's get one thing straight - Bald, 37-year-old Kobe ain't Afro Kobe. No, no. Bald, 37-year-old Kobe is a relatively inaccurate jump-shooter who occasionally gets a couple to drop for him and semi-frequently turns the ball over. As he continued hucking up mid-range shots, he clanked a couple off the backboard without even drawing iron and even missed a couple point-blank lay-ups. I chuckled a little bit without much concern for the outcome of the game. It was inevitable that Kobe would "get his," so to speak, and his team, as per usual, would likely end up losing the game.
But Kobe mustered his inner "Mamba" and willedhis team himself within a few points of the Jazz with only a few minutes left in regulation. By George, the Lakers he even took the lead with under a minute to play! Are you kidding me, Jazz? Stomp on the cockroach and get it done! The Staples Center was going berserk and the internet, as they say, was in the process of breaking.
Indeed, the world was watching.
When Kobe hit a jumper to take the lead with 32 seconds left, I had a pretty good feeling that it was over, just as ESPN could have scripted it. David Stern would have been incredibly proud of the way things were shaping up. In my wildest dreams, I could envision Kobe bricking a game winner - the last shot of his career - as the Jazz squeaked out a pathetic victory. But, deep down inside, I knew that wasn't going to happen. A couple of free throws later, Kobe Bryant had scored 60 points - SIXTY - and he was checking out for the final time with four seconds on the clock, to the raucous applause of the thousands in attendance and the millions watching around the world. Kobe once again had beaten the Jazz and he was retiring on top of the world.
Gutted. Sickened. Furious. Words almost cannot describe my anger following the Jazz-Lakers game that took place last night. It gave me a headache, to be quite honest. I drove home in silence, half of the way because I didn't want to think about it. As excited as I had been about the end of the '14-'15 season, that's exactly the opposite of how mad I was last night. Let's put it this way - I can't remember being this mad about the outcome of a sporting event since Michael Jordan pushed off in 1998.
This was a night people will be talking for the rest of our lives. No doubt, Kobe put on a show for his adoring fans - and good for him. That's exactly what everyone wanted to see, and he gave it to them. Sixty points. That's incredible. But let's take a closer look at a couple things - if nothing else, simply as a way for me to vent my feelings and in hopes that maybe one or two of you will take pity on me and make me feel justified in thinking this way. Surely, I can't be the ONLY person with whom last night's results didn't sit quite right.
It was a glorious night for Sportscenter, I'm sure. I didn't watch it. Couldn't bring myself to do that. But the great thing for Kobe is that whenever anyone reflects on his final game, nobody will ever bring up the fact that it took him FIFTY SHOT ATTEMPTS to score 60 points. I'm coming off the heels of a churchball season in which I'm not quite certain that I took 50 shot attempts, period. In fact, we're probably lucky that he ONLY scored 60 points. If reining (and likely repeating) MVP Steph Curry was allowed to shoot 50 times in one game, he probably would have scored 120 points on the Jazz. If Kobe had even a remotely efficient shooting night, based on the number of three-pointers he was shooting, he probably should have more like 80 points.
Not to toot my own horn (@atownmania), but I thought I summed the shot chart up perfectly when I retweeted the photo and added, "Looks like he made a couple of 'em."
Now, I didn't see the game when Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points, but I truly believe that what wound up lost in the hubbub of Hollywood glitz and glamour is the realization that what the world witnessed last night was the most selfish display I have ever seen in all of sports. LOOK HOW MANY SHOTS HE MISSED! And a lot of those misses WEREN'T EVEN CLOSE! But, in the end, nobody cares about the 28 shots that he missed, only the 60 points that he scored. He missed 15 threes, people. That's not good. "Black Mamba"? More like "Black Hole"! This was the Kobe of old - the Kobe who only cares for himself and his own stats and self-promotion. If any other player (think LeBron James, first and foremost) had taken 50 shots in a game with such sporadic (in)efficiency, they'd have been burned alive at the stake, but this was Kobe and, uh, "Kobe forever and always," I guess.
Perhaps, for me, the most infuriating thing of all is that the Lakers sucked horrendously all season long - remember, we beat them by 48 last time and they didn't seem affected by the loss whatsoever - and Kobe finally decides to show up and play ball. I've always looked at teams like the good Laker teams and the Spurs... the New England Patriots, as well... as teams who can flip a switch whenever they want and say, "The regular season doesn't mean crap for us, but let's just make the playoffs and then we'll actually try." That bugs the heck out of me. Well, Kobe flipped the switch last night. I didn't think he was particularly good and he definitely wasn't dominant, by any stretch of the imagination. If you're going to shoot 50 times, you're going to score some points. But Kobe put on a doozy of a performance in the fourth quarter, single-handedly outscoring the Jazz, and we just couldn't deal with it. He made shots when it counted and we didn't.
Based on the way Kobe handled himself this season, I probably would have thought it was cool to see him put on a show like that, as long as it were against any other team in the league. Why couldn't his final game have been against the New Orleans Pelicans or the New York Knicks or the Oklahoma City Thunder? That would have been fine with me. But, of course, as the basketball gods intended for it to be, his final game was against my Utah Jazz... This was against my team that I've loved for my entire life. It was not cool, it was not fun to watch and I didn't enjoy it at all.
As if the images of Michael Jordan PUSHING OFF for his supposed "final shot" in 1998 haven't scarred me badly enough, now I get MJ's "final game" and Kobe's final game, combined. The double whammy of double whammies. I've lived with the outcome of the 1998 NBA Finals for 18 years now (wow) and it's rough. It really is. That was one of the worst moments of my life. Honestly, it was! That was really difficult to watch as a 12-year-old kid and it still brings back some bad memories. Now, every time somebody mentions Kobe Bryant's legacy, they'll say, "Hey, remember when Kobe dropped 60 in his finale game? Who were they playing again? Oh yeah, it was the Utah Jazz, wasn't it?" Once again, the Jazz are an iconic part of basketball history, forever ingrained in the annals of time. Why did it have to be us? Of all the teams, why?
I tried to avoid Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and anything else last night that would have rubbed Kobe's glorious evening in my face any more than was necessary, so I didn't really get to hear what the Jazz players were thinking after the game ended. But I'll tell you what - I'll be terribly disappointed if nobody went straight back to the locker room and kicked a chair over or something. That's what I would have done. And, by the sounds of it, I'm not confident that there was any chair-kicking involved.
Based on the tweets I saw from Jazz beat writer @DJJazzyJody (who I typically find to be a combination of moderately informative, smug and annoying), it seems like many of the Jazz players were just happy to have been there.
Trey Lyles: "It’s a great thing to be a part of."
We lost to one of the most pathetic teams in recent memory, Trey. That's not a great thing to be a part of.
Rodney Hood: "I was in awe. I know we’re playing against him, but that's a [heck] of a way to go out into the sunset."
Sounds like the more he scored, the more we watched. The only one who deserved to be watching in awe was Trey Burke, who has been inexplicably benched for the the final dozen games of the season. He had a front row seat and had no chance of getting off the bench last night.
Gordon Hayward: "It was a fun night, a historic night. ... It was definitely vintage Kobe. It was cool."
Cool, Gordon? Cool?!? You know what I bet was cool? When you were over on the sideline hugging celebrities with a minute left to play and a deficit to dig our team out of. I bet that was cool. Get your head in the game, bro. We lost the game. You know what else would have been cool? If you guys actually played some defense instead of letting a washed up hall of famer score at will.
The only comments I actually didn't mind after last night's loss were from Joe Ingles ("I’ll probably be in some of his highlights for the rest of my life. I’ll show them to my kids someday." - because I know he's joking) and Rudy Gobert (who tweeted out three blushing-face emojis just after the game ended. Where is the fire, guys? Shouldn't they be devastated after blowing it like that?
Maybe I'm missing something (admittedly, and as previously mentioned, I wasn't going out of my way to pay attention to anything that happened after that final buzzer), but why the BEEEEEEEP were we just happy to be there? Where the BEEEEEEEEEEP is the sense of pride? Why the BEEEEEEEEP didn't we say, "All right, guys, this is Kobe's final game and the entire world is watching us. Let's send that son-of-a-gun home with a big, fat L tonight. Let's get out there and get it done..."??
Call me crazy, but I thought that last night's loss to Kobeand the Lakers was extremely, extremely disappointing - an outright embarrassment for the organization.
I consider myself a very patient, faithful and forgiving Utah Jazz fan, sometimes even at the expense of reality. I think we've got a decent team. I think we've got a bunch of nice guys. I know we're never going to make it back to the Finals, but every year I fool myself into believing that maybe this year something special will happen. This year was no exception; nothing special happened (unless you consider losing four of our last five and handing the Rockets a playoff berth "special"). But this year, unlike other years, I'm straight-up mad at the Jazz. We choked hardcore. There's no other way to look at it, if you're like me.
However, as expected, many of Utah's crummy "talking heads" on the radio were filled with lines that began with "I get why some Jazz fans are upset, but..." BUT WHAT?!? BUT NOTHING! If you're not upset, are you really a Jazz fan? Who in their right mind would watch last night's game and say, "It's fine. We're a really young, inexperienced team, but there's always next year." I've finally come to my senses, and guess what? WE'VE BEEN A REALLY YOUNG, INEXPERIENCED TEAM FOR LIKE THREE YEARS NOW! When are things going to change? When are things going to get better?
"Jazz fans shouldn't be angry; last night's game was meaningless." WELL, IF IT DIDN'T MATTER, WHY DID WE PLAY IT? WHY DID WE EVEN BOTHER SHOWING UP?? Sure, it wouldn't have gotten us into the playoffs (that's our own fault), but it was, nationally, one of the biggest games of the last decade or so. Kobe was a legend for this generation and everybody had their calendars marked for that game. I mean, everybody except for the Jazz and their naive fans, I guess.
I'm mad at the Jazz because we shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. I think if we were still in playoff contention or even headed to the playoffs, we wouldn't have laid down for Kobe like we did. All we needed to have done prior to last night's game was to have won one extra game. Check it out: this year, the Jazz had some bad losses that could have (and should have) been prevented. After a quick glance at the roster, we had two losses to Detroit, Orlando and Sacramento. We had road losses to Minnesota and the Knicks. And we had home loses to Brooklyn, New Orleans and (the killer) a devastating loss to the Clippers' "JV squad" when it counted the most. If we had won just one or two of those games, we wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place. But yet again, the Jazz found a way to put them in a position where our ability to get into the postseason depended on another team losing, and it didn't pan out.
I got a lot of crap about being a sports fan from people while working at Salt Lake Comic Con. I found this particularly ironic, since comic conventions are events that pride themselves on being a safe place where people can go and be themselves, no matter what they're interested in. (So let me get this straight - it's ok for a grown man to collect "My Little Pony" dolls, but not to cheer for a sports team? Really?) Anyway, that was weird, but, as I was thinking about sports, in general, last night, I came to consider that maybe they were right. Obviously, I'm not going to give up on sports entirely, but I can't remember a time when I was so upset about a movie or TV show that I felt physically ill. This is not to say that watching Kobe go out on top made me start vomiting or anything, but I, physically and mentally, did not feel like myself after that game. I've seen some terrible and stupid movies in my day and I've struggled to keep up with shows that I knew wouldn't last, but being a sports fan is a lifelong commitment to disappointment, and that's something that "America's Got Talent" viewers can't even say. That's just three months of watching that ultimately ends in disappointment and then it's over - and, heck, you can easily switch rooting allegiances along the way without being branded a "bandwagon fan" for doing so.
Back to sports. Pick any given team in any given league. If there are 30 teams in a league, which is about normal, statistically, your team has a 97% chance of not winning the championship. In my lifetime, my actual team that I had legitimately been cheering for long-term has won one championship. That was the New Orleans Saints in 2011, the culmination of 10 years of misery as an out-of-state fan. The Jazz made it to the Finals twice and lost both times. If they could just win one championship - one championship - then I could die a happy man. But that will never happen and my greatest efforts in cheering them on to victory will continue to be forever futile.
I'm frustrated, most of all, that I have been giving the Jazz way more than they have been giving to me, year in and year out. I've invested hours and hours, evenings and evenings, money, gas mileage and, occasionally, my social life for this team, and what do I get back? Nothing, really. Even if the Jazz had made the playoffs this year, we'd likely have been swept by the Warriors, so where would the fun be in that?
It's taken me years to get to this point, but now I can honestly say it - this team isn't working. I like our guys. I like them all. Even Gordon, who the fans place much too heavy a burden upon. Even Trey Burke, who the organization apparently detests for some unknowable reason. I like Jingling Joe and Trevor Booker and I like Jeff Withey, too, even though I hated him at Kansas. I think the team has great chemistry, which prevents us from becoming the Sacramento Kings. But, clearly, this team is not going to win a championship the way we are built right now. Things might have been different if we could have stayed healthy all year long, but even then, we couldn't have taken out any of the top three seeds in the West. I think we could be Eastern Conference champions, for sure, but that's a geographical impossibility.
Gosh dang it, I just want to win. For once in my life, I want to watch the Jazz raise a banner that says "WORLD CHAMPIONS" on it. And I'm mad because I care. I love this team. Too much, in fact. And I'm tired of them playing down to their competition and breaking my heart like they did last night for Kobe Bryant's final game.
Tell me I'm not alone.
A new season and high hopes for the Utah Jazz
I really thought the Utah Jazz were going to make the NBA playoffs this year. We've been in "rebuild mode" for a few years now, but I feel like this group - built around Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, Rudy Gobert, Rodney Hood and Alec Burks - is a pretty decent young team. We finished the 2014-15 season on a high note, missing the playoffs, but going on a run down the stretch that had me excited for the 2015 campaign to start up.Things took a hit before we could even get the train rolling this year, as our supposed "point guard of the future," Dante Exum, suffered a season-ending injury while playing in the off-season in his native Australia. That was just the beginning, really, as 2015 turned out to be an injury plagued year for many of our core players. Alec Burks broke his leg, Rudy Gobert sprained his MCL, Derrick Favors hurt his back... It was not a healthy year for us.
Despite the injuries, we were able to hang in there (thanks in some part to a "down year" in the Western Conference - only Golden State, San Antonio and Oklahoma City stood out as dominant teams) and we were fighting for our postseason lives to the bitter end, so to speak. With only a few games to play, Utah, Dallas and Houston were jockeying for the seventh and eighth playoff spots in the West. With a few games left, all the Jazz needed to do, simply put, was win their games. After a truly unfortunate loss to an almost entirely depleted Los Angeles Clippers team, the Jazz had three games to play and really needed to "win out" in order to make the playoffs. We beat the Nuggets soundly in Denver and approached the most important game of the year: a showdown between the then-sixth-seeded Dallas Mavericks.
I was at the Jazz-Mavericks game in Salt Lake City on Monday. I was pumped. I don't believe Dallas is that good this year and I thought that, with our playoff hopes on the line, the Jazz would step it up, rise to the occasion and bring us a sweet, sweet victory. Uh. Yeah. About that... It didn't happen. We looked terrible, couldn't hit uncontested shots and lost by nine. It was worse than it sounds. With a minute to play, I thought to myself that, if they needed a good reaction shot for TV, I'd be the poster boy for the "man, it sucks to be a Jazz fan right now" expression. Houston won that night, meaning that, in order to make the playoffs, we'd need to beat the Lakers in L.A. and we'd also need the Rockets to lose to the hapless Sacramento Kings at home. I'd later discover that Sacramento wasn't even sending four or five of their key players on the trip. In other words, we were done for. We wouldn't be making the playoffs yet again and our season was, effectively, over. My thoughts proved prophetic, as the Rockets thrashed the Kings last night before our 8:30 battle with the Lakers had even tipped.So that was it. It was over. We had nothing to play for. I just hoped our players didn't know that.
The Kobe Bryant Farewell Tour
It's here that our story really gets exciting. You see, unless you've been hiding under a rock somewhere for the past six or seven months, you're well aware that this was Kobe Bryant's final season in the NBA. After a 20-year career, he was calling it quits and hanging up the Nikes. Finally, for the first time in two decades, it seemed like Kobe was actually being a nice guy. This year, he was respectful with the media, kind to the fans and seemed, for once, to actually be a nice guy. He was smiling more, he looked like he was relaxed and, you know what? He almost seemed likable!Wait, wait. What am I saying? This is Kobe Bryant we're talking about. The Kobe Bryant that had been a bitter rival of my Utah Jazz since those infamous playoff airballs in his 1997 rookie season. This is the guy that knocked the Jazz out of the playoffs three years in a row. This is the guy that waived Karl Malone off for a pick during an All-Star game. While I do admit that "NBA Courtside 2 featuring Kobe Bryant" was an awesome game on Nintendo 64 and that "Afro Kobe" was an exciting player to watch as I grew up, this guy, ultimately, was the arrogant, cocky jerk that I'd come to hate since my childhood. And now he was playing the final game of his career against the Utah Jazz. At long last, we would get the last laugh and send Kobe packing for good. Heck, the previous time we faced the Lakers this season, we beat them by 48 - the worst loss of Kobe's entire career. It was glorious.
My family is full of big-time Jazz fans. I told my mom yesterday afternoon that we should beat the Lakers by 35 points - 15 points, minimum. I told my dad and brother, Austin, that losing to this Lakers team would be almost unforgivable. Let me clarify - these are not your daddy's Los Angeles Lakers. These Lakers SUCK. They entered last night's game with a 16-65 record - the worst in their franchise's history. I almost felt bad that Kobe was being sent out with such horrendous, lazy teammates. Almost. But it was Kobe and I hate him and I loved that the Lakers had become one of the laughing stocks of the league. Surely, we'd beat them. Maybe we'd let Kobe have a little fun, but there was no way we'd lose to this team, regardless of playoff implications.
#MambaDay
The world was watching, certainly.
Rumor has it that the worst seats in the house were going for $800 and those who wanted to sit courtside were paying, allegedly, 20 times that much. Ridiculous, if you ask me, but whatever. Their money, not mine. Good for them.
As the game went on, it was evident to even the least knowledgeable of viewers that Kobe (as was often the case for most of his career) had no intention of passing. Basically, the other four Lakers on the court at any given time were tasked with two or three responsibilities: get the ball to Kobe, get the heck out of the way and rebound it if he misses. Lather, rinse, repeat.Let's get one thing straight - Bald, 37-year-old Kobe ain't Afro Kobe. No, no. Bald, 37-year-old Kobe is a relatively inaccurate jump-shooter who occasionally gets a couple to drop for him and semi-frequently turns the ball over. As he continued hucking up mid-range shots, he clanked a couple off the backboard without even drawing iron and even missed a couple point-blank lay-ups. I chuckled a little bit without much concern for the outcome of the game. It was inevitable that Kobe would "get his," so to speak, and his team, as per usual, would likely end up losing the game.
But Kobe mustered his inner "Mamba" and willed
Indeed, the world was watching.
A Hollywood ending
When Kobe hit a jumper to take the lead with 32 seconds left, I had a pretty good feeling that it was over, just as ESPN could have scripted it. David Stern would have been incredibly proud of the way things were shaping up. In my wildest dreams, I could envision Kobe bricking a game winner - the last shot of his career - as the Jazz squeaked out a pathetic victory. But, deep down inside, I knew that wasn't going to happen. A couple of free throws later, Kobe Bryant had scored 60 points - SIXTY - and he was checking out for the final time with four seconds on the clock, to the raucous applause of the thousands in attendance and the millions watching around the world. Kobe once again had beaten the Jazz and he was retiring on top of the world.Gutted. Sickened. Furious. Words almost cannot describe my anger following the Jazz-Lakers game that took place last night. It gave me a headache, to be quite honest. I drove home in silence, half of the way because I didn't want to think about it. As excited as I had been about the end of the '14-'15 season, that's exactly the opposite of how mad I was last night. Let's put it this way - I can't remember being this mad about the outcome of a sporting event since Michael Jordan pushed off in 1998.
This was a night people will be talking for the rest of our lives. No doubt, Kobe put on a show for his adoring fans - and good for him. That's exactly what everyone wanted to see, and he gave it to them. Sixty points. That's incredible. But let's take a closer look at a couple things - if nothing else, simply as a way for me to vent my feelings and in hopes that maybe one or two of you will take pity on me and make me feel justified in thinking this way. Surely, I can't be the ONLY person with whom last night's results didn't sit quite right.
A-Town analysis
Let's take a look at Kobe's shot chart from last night, as tweeted out by @ESPNStatsInfo:
Not to toot my own horn (@atownmania), but I thought I summed the shot chart up perfectly when I retweeted the photo and added, "Looks like he made a couple of 'em."
Now, I didn't see the game when Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points, but I truly believe that what wound up lost in the hubbub of Hollywood glitz and glamour is the realization that what the world witnessed last night was the most selfish display I have ever seen in all of sports. LOOK HOW MANY SHOTS HE MISSED! And a lot of those misses WEREN'T EVEN CLOSE! But, in the end, nobody cares about the 28 shots that he missed, only the 60 points that he scored. He missed 15 threes, people. That's not good. "Black Mamba"? More like "Black Hole"! This was the Kobe of old - the Kobe who only cares for himself and his own stats and self-promotion. If any other player (think LeBron James, first and foremost) had taken 50 shots in a game with such sporadic (in)efficiency, they'd have been burned alive at the stake, but this was Kobe and, uh, "Kobe forever and always," I guess.
Why, oh why, did it have to be us?
Based on the way Kobe handled himself this season, I probably would have thought it was cool to see him put on a show like that, as long as it were against any other team in the league. Why couldn't his final game have been against the New Orleans Pelicans or the New York Knicks or the Oklahoma City Thunder? That would have been fine with me. But, of course, as the basketball gods intended for it to be, his final game was against my Utah Jazz... This was against my team that I've loved for my entire life. It was not cool, it was not fun to watch and I didn't enjoy it at all.As if the images of Michael Jordan PUSHING OFF for his supposed "final shot" in 1998 haven't scarred me badly enough, now I get MJ's "final game" and Kobe's final game, combined. The double whammy of double whammies. I've lived with the outcome of the 1998 NBA Finals for 18 years now (wow) and it's rough. It really is. That was one of the worst moments of my life. Honestly, it was! That was really difficult to watch as a 12-year-old kid and it still brings back some bad memories. Now, every time somebody mentions Kobe Bryant's legacy, they'll say, "Hey, remember when Kobe dropped 60 in his finale game? Who were they playing again? Oh yeah, it was the Utah Jazz, wasn't it?" Once again, the Jazz are an iconic part of basketball history, forever ingrained in the annals of time. Why did it have to be us? Of all the teams, why?
I see pride, I see power... J/K, I don't.
Based on the tweets I saw from Jazz beat writer @DJJazzyJody (who I typically find to be a combination of moderately informative, smug and annoying), it seems like many of the Jazz players were just happy to have been there.
Trey Lyles: "It’s a great thing to be a part of."
We lost to one of the most pathetic teams in recent memory, Trey. That's not a great thing to be a part of.
Rodney Hood: "I was in awe. I know we’re playing against him, but that's a [heck] of a way to go out into the sunset."
Sounds like the more he scored, the more we watched. The only one who deserved to be watching in awe was Trey Burke, who has been inexplicably benched for the the final dozen games of the season. He had a front row seat and had no chance of getting off the bench last night.
Gordon Hayward: "It was a fun night, a historic night. ... It was definitely vintage Kobe. It was cool."
Cool, Gordon? Cool?!? You know what I bet was cool? When you were over on the sideline hugging celebrities with a minute left to play and a deficit to dig our team out of. I bet that was cool. Get your head in the game, bro. We lost the game. You know what else would have been cool? If you guys actually played some defense instead of letting a washed up hall of famer score at will.
The only comments I actually didn't mind after last night's loss were from Joe Ingles ("I’ll probably be in some of his highlights for the rest of my life. I’ll show them to my kids someday." - because I know he's joking) and Rudy Gobert (who tweeted out three blushing-face emojis just after the game ended. Where is the fire, guys? Shouldn't they be devastated after blowing it like that?
Call me crazy, but I thought that last night's loss to Kobe
Diary of a mad white man
However, as expected, many of Utah's crummy "talking heads" on the radio were filled with lines that began with "I get why some Jazz fans are upset, but..." BUT WHAT?!? BUT NOTHING! If you're not upset, are you really a Jazz fan? Who in their right mind would watch last night's game and say, "It's fine. We're a really young, inexperienced team, but there's always next year." I've finally come to my senses, and guess what? WE'VE BEEN A REALLY YOUNG, INEXPERIENCED TEAM FOR LIKE THREE YEARS NOW! When are things going to change? When are things going to get better?"Jazz fans shouldn't be angry; last night's game was meaningless." WELL, IF IT DIDN'T MATTER, WHY DID WE PLAY IT? WHY DID WE EVEN BOTHER SHOWING UP?? Sure, it wouldn't have gotten us into the playoffs (that's our own fault), but it was, nationally, one of the biggest games of the last decade or so. Kobe was a legend for this generation and everybody had their calendars marked for that game. I mean, everybody except for the Jazz and their naive fans, I guess.
I'm mad at the Jazz because we shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. I think if we were still in playoff contention or even headed to the playoffs, we wouldn't have laid down for Kobe like we did. All we needed to have done prior to last night's game was to have won one extra game. Check it out: this year, the Jazz had some bad losses that could have (and should have) been prevented. After a quick glance at the roster, we had two losses to Detroit, Orlando and Sacramento. We had road losses to Minnesota and the Knicks. And we had home loses to Brooklyn, New Orleans and (the killer) a devastating loss to the Clippers' "JV squad" when it counted the most. If we had won just one or two of those games, we wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place. But yet again, the Jazz found a way to put them in a position where our ability to get into the postseason depended on another team losing, and it didn't pan out.
Maybe the nerds were right
Back to sports. Pick any given team in any given league. If there are 30 teams in a league, which is about normal, statistically, your team has a 97% chance of not winning the championship. In my lifetime, my actual team that I had legitimately been cheering for long-term has won one championship. That was the New Orleans Saints in 2011, the culmination of 10 years of misery as an out-of-state fan. The Jazz made it to the Finals twice and lost both times. If they could just win one championship - one championship - then I could die a happy man. But that will never happen and my greatest efforts in cheering them on to victory will continue to be forever futile.
I'm frustrated, most of all, that I have been giving the Jazz way more than they have been giving to me, year in and year out. I've invested hours and hours, evenings and evenings, money, gas mileage and, occasionally, my social life for this team, and what do I get back? Nothing, really. Even if the Jazz had made the playoffs this year, we'd likely have been swept by the Warriors, so where would the fun be in that?
It's taken me years to get to this point, but now I can honestly say it - this team isn't working. I like our guys. I like them all. Even Gordon, who the fans place much too heavy a burden upon. Even Trey Burke, who the organization apparently detests for some unknowable reason. I like Jingling Joe and Trevor Booker and I like Jeff Withey, too, even though I hated him at Kansas. I think the team has great chemistry, which prevents us from becoming the Sacramento Kings. But, clearly, this team is not going to win a championship the way we are built right now. Things might have been different if we could have stayed healthy all year long, but even then, we couldn't have taken out any of the top three seeds in the West. I think we could be Eastern Conference champions, for sure, but that's a geographical impossibility.
Gosh dang it, I just want to win. For once in my life, I want to watch the Jazz raise a banner that says "WORLD CHAMPIONS" on it. And I'm mad because I care. I love this team. Too much, in fact. And I'm tired of them playing down to their competition and breaking my heart like they did last night for Kobe Bryant's final game.
Tell me I'm not alone.
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