Pod 9 - A man. A series. In memorandum

Episode 9: wherein Spencer turns to the mic solo. Until Bunna arrives, that is. Nathan is memorialized, the West Lake vs. Valley series is revered, and longing is felt.

Guest Starring: Bunna Veth

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Jimmer, the Austin Collie of the NBA

Who is Jimmer Freddette? What NBA player will he turn into? The question on everyone's mind has a wide range of answers, depending on who you talk to.

The optimists say Jimmer will develop a style of play comparable to Steve Nash or Stephen Curry. The pessimists say Brevin Knight or Steve Blake. The people who don't think white-skinned humans belong in the NBA say Adam Morrison. But you want to know what I say, that's why you're on this particular site, right?

To get my answer requires traveling cross-sport from the Association to the NFL, because Jimmer's greatest comparable, in my mind, is former BYU receiver Austin Collie. The similarities go on and on with these two. Collie, like Jimmer, was at the top of his position in his final college season. He set BYU records and led the nation in receiving yards in 2008. Despite being the primary focus of opposing defenses, Collie remained unguardable, setting an NCAA record with 11-straight games of 100 or more receiving yards to end his career.

Of course, heading into the NFL draft Collie wasn't considered worthy of a first, second or even third round pick. The nation's leading receiver wasn't selected until the fourth round (the 19th wide receiver taken) because he was pale which automatically meant he suffered from Poor Athleticism and Lacked Explosiveness. Scouts reasoned that a non-athletic person like Collie could have led the NCAA in receiving only if he were in the proper system or pitted against inferior foes.

(Any of this sounding familiar yet?)

And so Collie dropped accordingly. Right into the hands of the best passer in the league (Peyton Manning), where he continued to excel, nearly mirroring the Rookie of the Year Award winner's numbers from that year:

Austin Collie, rookie year-
60 receptions, 676 yards, 7 touchdowns.

Percy Harvin, Rookie of the Year winner-
60 receptions, 790 yards, 6 touchdowns.

Jimmer has lived a parallel life to Collie thus far. Despite his college dominance, Jimmer's accomplishments are discredited as results of an odd-ball system and poor competition. Even though he consistently showed he could break double teams and beat opponents to the rim, he has been deemed nonathletic (P.A.L.E), and at 6' 2", too small to play point guard. The question is asked again: who will Jimmer become?

That will depend, much as it did with Austin Collie, on the team that selects him. Had Collie been picked earlier in the draft, by a team other than the Colts, he most likely would not have enjoyed the success he's had through his first two seasons. The Colts were the perfect team for him: a pass first squad with a hall of fame QB that often targets slot receivers. It was an ideal fit.

If Jimmer were to be drafted first overall by the Cavaliers, I expect his career would be negatively impacted in a severe way. The team would simply not be a good fit for his skill set. The natural question then becomes, which team is the perfect fit for Jimmer? His agent had him work with five teams that he believed matched his style of play: Utah, Phoenix, Sacramento, New York and Indiana. Of these five teams, one would be a match made in basketball heaven, comparable in perfection to Collie's fit with the Colts. The team I refer to, unfortunately, is not Utah.

It's Phoenix.

The Suns run and shoot. The fast attack is their mantra, and it matches Jimmer's abilities perfectly. Compared to Utah, where the three pointer remains frowned upon despite coach Sloan's departure, Phoenix would encourage the bomber to launch from deep at will. Not to mention in Phoenix resides the Canadian point guard sage, Steve Nash, whose tutelage could help Freddette in his point guard development exponentially.

Of course, it rips my heart to write this. I want to see Jimmer in the Jazz colors as much as the next man (man being short for: maniac, Cougar). The Jazz could use Freddette's range to say the least, not to mention his willingness to stay in Utah for the long term rather than flee for superior cities. Ticket sales, female viewers, and interest in Jazz basketball in general would increase as a result of his presence as well. And with tomorrow being my birthday, it makes sense that the Jazz should give me this great present.

But no, I will not spend my birthday wish on Jimmer to the Jazz. Phoenix would be his best spot, and it's there I will wish him to go. Of course, Jimmer's preferred spot landing spot is in New York. The draft starts in five. 

Time to see whose wishes come true.

UPDATE --

Neither mine, nor Jimmer's, nor the maniacal BYU/Jazz fan's dreams have come true. Sacramento on the other hand ...

State of the States

Thick in the wake of a Californian associates six day stay in Logan, I was reminded of the inferiority of the state I call home. Somehow my mind had managed to forget that people not from Utah enjoy mocking the state of beehives. Which is only natural. Ever since the establishing of this country there has always been a pecking order among the states; a nation wide food chain of sorts, or in this case, a rude chain.

Californians mock Utahns. Utahns mock Idahoes. Idahoes -- in a strange twist of cannibalism -- mock Prestonites. And everyone mocks North Dakota (Sorry Brooke, I'm not saying this because you broke up with me, but because a friend of mine awaiting a mission call specifically highlighted North Dakota as the one place in the world she would not want to be sent to. She singled it out as the only state without a distinguishing feature worthy of mention. I countered that a state whose capital city rhymes with the word "skidmark" is definitely recognizable but she didn't buy it.). With so many states claiming superiority over others, it's typical to find publications ranking the states from first to fiftieth.

Of course, how can one measure which state is best? Various factors would demand consideration: employment opportunities, crime rates, recreation sites, temperatures, attractiveness of females, etc. And to spend six hours forging those factors into a formula would be a waste of time I could otherwise be channeling into Survivor Australia watching. Instead this post will attempt to answer a specific question that has a more gossipy tabloid feel to it: which state is the trashiest?

To answer this question will require reliance on everyone's favorite website, peopleofwalmart.com. Because while some mock the people of Utah, and others mock the people of Idaho, everyone mocks the people of Walmart. Those who receive the dubious honor of being featured on the site are the embodiment of trashiness, the MVP's of the trailer park, as you can see for yourself in the picture below. Wait, on second thought, scratch that bit about the photo. I can't violate my policy of exclusively posting pictures of attractive women or BYU players on this site. Sorry.

Ahh, that feels better

Anyway, during a recent bout of free time (not spent watching Survivor) I compiled a list of how many photos each state had submitted to the website. By mathematically mating the picture totals with a state's population, a listing of how many trashy pictures are submitted by state (per million residents) is developed. We'll assume that the higher the number of trashy pictures submitted, the higher the number of trashy persons who inhabit the state. Fair enough? Behold the rankings:

Pictures Submitted per Million Residents


-- Top Five, Most Trashy

Complete Rankings

     1. Oklahoma, 19.5
     2. Arkansas,  11.4
     3. Nevada,  10.99
     4. Utah, 10.97
     5. Florida, 10.2

-- Bottom Five, Least Trashy
   46. Connecticut, 2.8
   47. New Jersey, 2.1
   48. New York, 1.7
   49. Massachusetts, 1.5
   50. Rhode Island, 0

For the record my money was on Alabama to take the top spot on this list, so to see Oklahoma as the number one trashy state (nearly doubling the runner-up) was a real shocker. Though not as shocking as seeing my own abode pop up as fourth trashiest nationwide (I suppose the polygamists have to shop somewhere). The northeastern section of the U.S dominated the rankings, adding evidence to the claim that east-coast living really is the way to go. And as far as the Idaho-Utah rivalry is concerned, Idaho ranked 37th overall at 3.8 pictures per million residents, effectively proving that their state is three times less trashy than the one below it. Ugh.

I'll save the critics some time and point out for them the many potential flaws with this simplistic ranking system. Population is a decent denominator for the rankings purpose, but picture submissions are affected by the number of stores per state as well which was a factor not taken into account in this equation (for example, Texas has 259 Walmart locations while California only has 17; the two share similar populations but dissimilar store quantities). Likewise troubling is the fact that I had to rely on peopleofwalmart.com and statemaster.com for the contributing data, two sites which don't necessarily scream of statistical accuracy.

And of course this data doesn't necessarily mean that the states with the highest totals are trashy. Could be that these states just really like photography, or particularly enjoy mocking others, or just have nothing better to do than hang out at Walmart.  Either way, I'm still disappointed in Utah. While we may never be able to abandon Walmart and its timely sales, my fellow mates and I would do well to modify and follow the words of the prophet:

"Be in the store, but not of the store".

Cutting Slack for the King

LeBron James is getting massacred. Buried. Annihilated. Nuked.

Not only is he being shish kabobbed in the press for falling apart in the NBA finals, but the nation at large is delighting in his personal failure. I'll admit that I've participated in similar behavior (Utah vs TCU 2010 anyone?) but finding happiness in someone else's botch job is pathetic. The celebrator declares in essence, "my life and the things that bring me joy are in the crapper and all I have left is the hope that someone else will beat someone I don't like." The most embarrassing example of this comes from Ohio, where the state's governor named the Dallas Mavericks "Honorary Ohioans" for their victory over LeBron, which makes one wonder, Is Ohio's governor in elementary school? Really, the best your state can do is a victory over your spurned lover courtesy another team?

There's two things I think are nuts here. The first is why so many people hate LeBron. What did LeBron do to earn such rancor? Did he cheat on his wife with hundreds of mistresses? Did he use feminine drugs as a performance enhancer? Did he commit homicide driving under the influence? He did not. His sin was leaving a team that had made countless management errors (a workplace we all would want to leave) to go play with his friends (people we all would want to be around) in a city with beaches, girls and no income tax (a place we all would like to live). Would you have stayed in Cleveland, where your team's biggest moves were to trade for Vietnam veterans Shaq and Antawn Jamison and the splashy free agent signing is Jawad Williams?

Oh wait, I forgot, we're going to hate him because he announced his free agency destination on TV, right? We're all mad because we were forced to watch LeBron make his "decision", and we are furious that the show generated over $2 million dollars in charity for the Boys and Girl Club of America. The guy is a real jerk, isn't he? And of course we have to hate him because he joined forces with another superstar, just like we hated Shaq and Kobe, Jordan and Pippen, the Garnett/Pierce/Allen trio, and most recently the foursome of pitchers in Philadelphia (Oswalt, Hamels, Holladay, Lee).

There is only one real reason to dislike LeBron, and it comes from the pre-emptive celebration the Heat trio threw wherein LeBron declared Miami would win seven NBA titles. You can hate him for that: cockiness, arrogance, whatever. But that alone should not be creating the volume of venom he's received.

The second thing that kills me is how the media is killing LeBron for his play in the Finals. Granted, he played bad in the majority of the six championship games. Even horrendous at times. But isn't it possible the guy had one bad series? Afterall, didn't Lebron dominate the three rounds leading up to the Finals? He cleaned out Philadelphia and Boston, before effectively erasing league MVP Derrick Rose in the conference finals. He averaged 24/10/6 in round 1, 28/8/3 in round 2, and 25/7/6 in round 3 with a couple of steals and blocks to boot. Those numbers are huge. Yet the reaction to his poor Finals performance is out of control. Some suggest he should be traded. Some are comparing him to Karl Malone. Even the Miami Heat as a team are somehow analyzed as needing major roster overhaul.

Are you kidding me?

The team came within two games of winning the NBA Finals in their first year playing together. They came within two final second shots of being up three games to one in the series. And their team should be overhauled? How over-reactionary can we become as a society? Can you imagine if we addressed hic-cups in our body like we did shortcomings with our sports teams? "I just got a cut on my foot! I need to amputate!" "We've got a bloody nose here, to the hospital stat!" "We barely lost the Finals, trade LeBron, he has to go!" It's madness. A few breaks and Miami wins the series, and the decapitation of LeBron never happens. Such is the fickle nature of sports; a nature we all too often forget. If Dirk misses his game-sealing layups in game two or four, the NBA title belongs to Miami. That's the difference.

But I guess what the media is really mad about is the fact that LeBron James has not become Michael Jordan.  Ever since number twenty three ascended to the holy rafters above, we the people have been searching for his heir. Lebron was dubbed early on as the chosen one, but the media has since discarded him as lacking the necessary traits (even though LeBron is still younger than Michael was when he won his first of six championships). The good news for the those making the news is that the other half of Mike, the ornery, disturbed, chip-shouldered version that called out his high school and college coaches during his Hall of Fame speech can still be cultivated in LeBron. All it would require is to carry on the doubting, mocking, and criticizing. Nobody can absorb a 24/7 internet, radio and TV bombardment without developing some serious mental disorders. So congratulations to the media I suppose, you're half way to making LeBron just like Mike.

The Utah Mavs

Stop me if you've seen this before --

A disrespected Hall of Fame power forward. An aged, white point guard at his side. A dead-eye three point shooter at the two guard.  All in the hunt for their first ever NBA championship. The obstacles in their path? Only an opponent that stopped their title run once before, some questionable officiating, and the greatest basketballer on the planet.

Sound familiar? It should, provided you are either a fan of the present Dallas Mavericks or the 1998 Utah Jazz. The current Mavs are the then-Jazz equivalent, a team stuck in a similar story, fighting the same enemy for the same prize. Though this year's Chicago Bulls boast three ex-Jazz man on their roster, it is the Mavericks that can't help but remind me of my favorite team of all-time. Consider:

Dirk Nowitzki is as dominant and desperate for a championship as Karl Malone ever was. Jason Kidd's age, style of play and appearance (were he with hair) remind me daily of John Stockton. Jason Terry is the athletic version of Jeff Hornacek, and standing on the other side of the ring is the man with a ring, Dwayne Wade, who forms a formidable Scottie Pippen. Completing the comparison and frowning on Dallas's championship hopes is LeBron James, a chip off the Michael Jordan block, spurred by the chip on his shoulder from absorbing a year's worth of criticism. The Heat are to the Mavs what the Bulls were to the Jazz.

The only real difference between the scenarios of the current Dallas Mavericks and the 98' Jazz is that the Mavs centers are black. That fact alone might be enough to swing things in a direction the Jazz never could with the florescent Greg brothers (Ostertag and Foster, the former of whose Fleer Tradition playing card is on eBay for a mere $1.00). While the colors of the players don't exactly match up, at least the colors of the teams do. Once again -- akin to Jazz vs. Bulls, the annual Holy War, and Pokemon Red and Blue -- it's a battle between, well, red and blue (or purple if you have normal eye sight).

It's not just the Mavericks current situation that has me reminiscing. Sheesh, prior to the Jazz's costume change of the past year the two team's jerseys were nearly identical. Even the names of the two teams sounds familiar to a degree -- Jazz, Mavs -- though using that logic one would be forced to match the Jazz and the Cavs as well, which unfortunately would be an accurate comparison this year (you know your team blew big time when they're drafting in the same neighborhood as the Cavaliers).

These similarities can be the only explanation for why I've been cheering for the Mavericks all playoffs long. At first I thought it was because the Mavs were playing Portland, a team I hate. Then I thought I was cheering for them because they were playing the Lakers, a team I hate. But when I realized that I had remained supportive of Dallas even when they were playing the Thunder -- a team I do not hate -- something clicked in my usually unaware mind.

I liked the Mavericks. Which is strange.

Strange because the Mavericks 2001 playoff victory over the Jazz signaled the death of the Stockton-to-Malone era. Strange because Dirk Nowitzki once injured Andrei Kirilenko on a cheap foul. Stranger still because I often mocked Dirk for looking more like a WNBA player than a German score machine.

But the Mavs' journey to win the title by beating the team that previously drilled them while facing this generations Michael Jordan is so familiar to me that I am forced to root for this group. And Dirk has been so good that his obnoxious hair and fouls have been quickly forgiven (but never forgotten, thanks to YouTube). In fact, I might be experiencing an American first which has nothing to do with banking. It's tough to admit, but I can't deny it: My favorite NBA player is from Germany.

Surprisingly, Dirk isn't the only product I love that has come out of Germany as of late. The 1995 Spiel des Jahres Board Game of the Year, Settlers of Cataan, is my number one game and the building block of my reborn love life. Likewise my favorite author, Marcus Zusack, was born of a mother who hails from the land of fathers.

It's a short list of favorites, but at least I can say I'm beginning to get over World War II.

Speaking of heartache and catastrophic loss, I hope the Mavs and their fans can avoid it. I don't want Nowitzki and Kidd to be questioned for the rest of their lives like John and Karl. I don't want them to have to blame Bennet Salvatore for a lost championship like I blame Dick Bavetta. And most of all I don't want them to be on the receiving end of this:

No one, not even one of Germany's finest, deserves torture like that.