I thought I would be coming home from work to watch the Jazz vs Detroit game tonight. I'm not sure why I didn't realize the game wasn't on until tomorrow, but you can imagine my disappointment when I found out I would have to wait another night to see us extend our win streak over the Piston's Bad (as in they don't play very well) Boys. When my wife found out the game wasn't on, she immediately used her superior manipulating power to con me into going and seeing some Bee move with ex rapper Queen Latifah in the dollar theatres. The worst part is... I'm not really too upset that my night has turned into girly movie night instead of Jazzfest. 

Maybe it is because I know that I’ll be able to see the Jazz tomorrow, or maybe I’m holding on to the hope that this movie will be about killer swarms of bees attacking people like Hitchcock’s birds, but I think most likely the reason I’m not too let down about today’s happenings is that I still don’t really know who this Jazz team is. I guess it’s like not being excited to go to a family reunion with lots of distant relatives, I don’t feel as much of a connection this year as others.
After getting to the second round of the playoffs last year, not killing their future by making unwise trades over the offseason, and drafting Kosta Koufos who I’d seen and liked here at Ohio State, even an ESPN guy, John Hollinger was picking Utah out of the West. I was pretty optimistic we would at least be in the discussion of title contenders, and at the very least I felt like I had a good idea of who this team was with pretty much everybody coming back. However, after moving AK to the bench for CJ Miles, golf cart accidents, Deron landing on Rose, poor family health, and some other usually minor injuries turned almost career ending, the Jazz wouldn’t even be in the playoffs if they started today. 

So, how do we explain our loss of home court dominance, our continued putridness over amazingly bad teams, and our inability to win over 2 games in a row? With excuses, or is this Jazz team just in reality not going to be good this year? 

On one hand we have had an amazing list of injuries to our top guys. But, Deron has been back for over 20 games now, and Millsap is in some ways out producing Boozer. Other teams have gotten by without their top guys. Look at Houston last year without Yao Ming. The truth is, I really don’t know. It’s hard to tell. They’ve looked good at times despite the injury bug, and have looked horrible at times despite most everybody playing. This current lineup without Boozer should give us an idea of what our future could look like right? Beats me. 

So while I’ll keep cheering on the Jazz, just like a good Utah boy should, I still don’t feel bad about spending a night watching not so killer bees instead of watching my distant cousins play basketball.

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