Jimbo’s Mailbag – Jazz Player Halloween Party

These are the Halloween costumes of the 2009 Utah Jazz.

Welcome to the next edition of Jimbo’s Mailbag! At Salt City Hoops, we know that covering a team without any humor can be dreary. As such, we decided to add a little bit more levity to our site via Jimbo’s unique outlook on the world of Jazz basketball. Jimbo, by virtue of being recently featured in the Deseret News, is now the world’s most famous Utah-based basketball mailbag artist. Interested in submitting a question to Jimbo’s mailbag? Email it to Jimbo at mailbag@saltcityhoops.com or tweet @JimboRudding to appear.

Q: If you hosted a Halloween party and invited former and current Jazz players, what would they be dressed as?

@BardenPembleton

I would LOVE to throw a Halloween party for Jazz players. Heaven knows these players have given me more than enough good thrills to last 76 lifetimes so the least I could do is throw them a kickin’ Halloween party.

I understand players have had raucous Halloween parties in the past, but the party I would throw for them would be wholesome and docile, yet full of fun and adventure. Here is the itinerary for my party:

• As they arrived, each guest gets to choose a fake witch’s finger out of the Halloween bowl.
• I invite the player’s kids to head down to the basement so they can watch “Hocus Pocus” on the TV/VCR combo.
• The adults and I watch Disney’s “Watcher in the Woods” on the 40-inch big screen upstairs. (Don’t let the “Disney” part fool you; this movie is hecka-scary!)
• After the movie is over, I head downstairs to rewind Hocus Pocus so the kids can watch it again.
• The adults and I put on ponchos and bob for apples.
• After all the apples are bobbed, we do a strength competition where the person who throws a bail of hay the farthest gets to take home a bunch of zucchini from my garden (I had WAY too much this year).
• We head to the family room where each player gets a flashlight and we tell scary stories about when we admitted to our crushes we liked them or about a time we got pulled over for speeding.
• After that we play a fun game called “Mummy” where we wrap someone up completely in toilet paper and just laugh about how funny mummies are.
• I go downstairs to check on the kids. If the movie is over I rewind it and start it again.
• As the party dies down, we just sit and talk about mundane things, like where we were when we found out about Baby Jessica or how the quality of Jiffy Lube oil changes has gone down.
• The kids make their way upstairs and say their movie is over and ask if they can watch it again, but it’s getting late and the players have a big season ahead.
• We give each other hugs, say “Happy Halloween,” and everyone leaves.

Again, this is my “ideal” Halloween party. I know not everything would go exactly like that. For instance, I really don’t have much zucchini left over from this year’s harvest. The point is, it would be good, family fun and we’d all be better people for having partied with each other.

If I had to guess, these are the costumes I think the players would wear to my party:

• Ronnie Brewer – water park employee
• Matt Harpring – football player
• Boozer – an ER patient
• Jim Les – the worst
• Boris Diaw – Starbucks barista
• Raul Neto/Kyle Korver – GQ model
• DeShawn Stevenson/Kirk Snyder – inmate
• Dante Exum – a confident basketball player
• John Amaechi – Liberace
• Rafael Araujo – The Hulk
• Mark Eaton – Groot
• Kyrylo Fesenko – the bad guy from “Air Force One”
• Trevor Booker – Tony the Tiger
• Joe Ingles – Paul Hogan
• Enes Kanter – a mountain
• John Lucas III – Rocky Balboa
• Pace Mannion – a bottle of LA Looks hair gel
• Elijah Millsap – Paul Millsap
• Rony Seikaly – a ghost
• Jazz Mini Bear – Willow Ufgood

Q: Who are you endorsing this election?

@bjspack

The question should be, who am I NOT endorsing? The truth is, I endorse everyone. Because really why not, right? Everyone needs to be endorsed every once in a while. The thing we have to remember is that we’re all just bags of guts held together by skin trying to live our lives.

I know I’ve told this story before, but this question reminds me of the presidential election in 2008 when I wrote in Paul Millsap for President because he had had a good game against the Clippers the night before. I wrote in John Travolta for Vice President, but I don’t remember for sure why. Maybe it was because I had just seen Grease for the 100^th time and was celebrating?

I’m in a real predicament when it comes to this year’s election. I don’t want to vote for Trump because I already think America is great. I also don’t want to vote for Hillary because I don’t like her hair. So, what am I supposed to do? Maybe I’ll go see Sully that night. I love Tom Hanks so much. I wish he were president.

Q: Could you rate your protected Jazz starting 5 as Third Eye Blind songs?

@Cutch_22

I LOVE Third Eye Blind! Whatever happened to them? They were so big back in the late 90’s when we were all drinking Snapple and frosting our tips. Ugh, time flies. Now all kids listen to is that horrible rap!

I’m not sure I totally understand this question, so what I’m going to do is list who I think the Jazz starters will be on opening night and then attribute a Third Eye Blind song to each of them according to their personality. That sound OK? Good. Here we go:

• George Hill – Semi-Charmed Life
• Rodney Hood – Totally Charmed Life
• Gordon Hayward – Charmed Life
• Derrick Favors – Charmed, I’m Sure
• Rudy Gobert – Piano Man

That list, I think, says a lot.

Q: What are some of the coolest things that could happen to the Jazz this season?

@SCampbellSBN

Oh, man, I’m so excited for the season to start that I laid the outfit I’m planning to wear to opening night on the floor of my bedroom. I know we still have around three weeks until the first game, but my excitement is bigger than my desire to vacuum at this point.

I’m glad you asked this question because I usually make a list of things I want to have happen before every season starts. It’s sort of like my Jazz-season bucket list…only it’s for the Jazz and not me…and also I don’t die at the end… so, yeah, basically it’s nothing like a Jazz-season bucket list.

Anywho, here is a list of things I would LOVE to see happen to the Jazz this season:

• George Hill becomes the first Jazz player with a 15-assist game since… I don’t know, DWILL? I’m not good with numbers or looking things up on the internet.
• Boris Diaw becomes the first player in NBA history to drink a coffee while playing in a game.
• The Jazz do a “Are You Smarter Than a 5^th Grader” type show only it’s “Are You Fast Enough to Dodge Punches From John Lucas III.”
• The Utah Jazz allow my trained flamingo Ben and I to perform during halftime this year.
• Bolerjack and Harpring miss calling one of the greatest dunks in Utah Jazz history because they a discussing the miracle of the seagulls story.
• Rudy Gobert dunks on Dwight Howard so hard that Dwight’s head goes back to normal human size.
• Gordon Hayward screams, “POMPADOUR!” into the camera after hitting a big three-pointer.
• When Trevor Booker returns to play the Jazz, he dunks the ball so hard that a few Cocoa Pebbles fall out from underneath his jersey.
• The Jazz beat the Lakers by so many points that Laker management gets together and decides not to be an NBA team anymore.
• I bump into Tony Danza at Crown Burger and he buys me dinner. (This doesn’t really have anything to do with the Jazz. I just think it sounds awesome.)
• Derrick Favors dunks on Dwight Howard so hard that Dwight’s shoulders go back to normal human size.
• The Jazz put on a pregame activity where fans get to guess which Jazz Dunk Team member once got into a fistfight with his high school principal.
• Rodney Hood suddenly and inexplicably becomes right-handed.

Q: For reals though, do you think Trey Lyles gets more playing time this season than Boris Diaw?

@Mikeyvp

This is an interesting question because technically Lyles is a power forward and Diaw is a center. However, there has been a huge movement towards “positionless” basketball, so really your question is very relevant.

I guess it all depends on how the Jazz do this season. If they’re underachieving and not winning as many games as the coaches and front office expected, I could see Lyles get more minutes. If they are winning games and Boris is contributing substantially off the bench, then I could see Boris taking more of those big-man minutes.

The other thing you have to consider is that I don’t know much about basketball at all. In fact, I just barely learned what “over and back” means. So, I’m really not the one you should be asking.

What I CAN tell you is boy does Boris Diaw like coffee!

Q: Remember when I put my hand over the flames of the barbecue and pretended to be burned and you thought I was really hurt? Ha ha, you should’ve seen your face!

– Uncle Dale

Ummm, Uncle Dale, that was like 30 years ago. I was six years old. What did you expect me to do?

Also, how did you even submit a question to this mailbag? You’re not even on Twitter and you have never asked for my email. In fact, you’re not technologically savvy at all. I once saw you put a TI-83 calculator under a table leg to stop it from wobbling.

I mean, the last time I even saw you was in 2003 at the summer family reunion. I remember because you wore your 2002 Salt Lake Olympic coat and wouldn’t stop talking about how you volunteered during the Olympics and that you were mostly on “terrorist-watch duty” and how you “brushed up against Apolo Anton Ohno while he was putting on his skates.” It was JULY, man. You were sweating so much wearing that coat that we were all worried you would get heat stroke and die from dehydration. But you refused to take it off.

By the way, Aunt Robin is still mad at you for that thing you said about her stinky mini van.

Thanks for the questions, you guys! Remember to tell any clowns that may be hangin around the wooded areas of your neighborhood about Jimbo’s Mailbag. Right before you do it say, “Not to be weird, but….” Make it weird.