Jimbo’s Mailbag – Preseason Predictions

(Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images)

Here at Salt City Hoops, we’re occasionally accused of being too analytical. Basketball is a fun sport, they say, and we’re being too objective about it. Jumbo Rudding, on the other hand, is not analytical. He is zany. He is infamous for his out-of-left-field basketball jokes and opinions. We’re thrilled to have him contribute a mailbag each week on Salt City Hoops. Interested in submitting a question to Jimbo’s mailbag? Email it to Jimbo at mailbag@saltcityhoops.com or tweet @JimboRudding to appear.

Q: What are your 2015-2016 season predictions?

@SCampbellSBN

Great question! With training camp less than three weeks away, I guess it IS time to make my preseason predictions public (alliteration).

I actually have a good streak going. I just went back and checked and my last 73 predictions have been correct. Hopefully I can keep the streak going.

Without further adeauxiouxeau, here are my 2015-2016 season predictions:

• Raulzinho Neto will be the starting point guard by Christmas because of his “muito bacana” play. *****First one who tweets me and tells me what “bacana” means will get an RT*****
• Trey Burke will be traded at the trade deadline.
• Allen Handy will look at himself in the mirror and say, “It’s go time!” at least once before a Jazz game this year.
• Trey Lyles won’t play much.
• The “Big Toblerone” Tibor Pleiss will be limited mainly to garbage time.
• Alec Burks will be shopped before the trade deadline.
• The Jazz Bear will do a crazy stunt.
• David Locke will yell “HE PUT THAT BABY IN THE STROLLER AND TOOK IT TO DENNY’S FOR A GRAND SLAM BREAKFAST AND SUBSTITUTED THE SAUSAGE FOR MORE BACON!” after a Favor’s dunk.
• Ron Boone will say, “OHHH BABY!” exactly 147 times this season.
• At least one fan will totally regret getting the nachos at halftime.
• After a game, a bike taxi driver will get irritated with me because I can’t remember where I parked.
• Before a game, a ticket scalper will get irritated with me for introducing him to a guy right next to him holding a sign that says, “I need tickets.”
• I will get home late at night from an event I didn’t want to attend and find out my DVR never recorded the Jazz game, which will cause me to curse loudly from my deck and wake up my neighbors.

Q: Have you ever tried out for the Jazz team, dunk team, or cheer squad? If not, why? If so, how’d it go?

@JamonWinegar

I have never “officially” tried out for any of those teams, but I HAVE muttered, “Pfft, I could do that” to myself during their performances plenty of times. I’m not sure if I actually COULD do any of the things the dunk team or cheer squad do, but I DO think it would be fun to chuck a tiny girl as hard as I could into the air and see if I can catch her. The girl would have to by young and athletic though, not old and frail like the Asian woman I practiced on a few years ago.

I have allegedly been plagued by a false sense of ability ever since I was in elementary school. When I moved to Utah in 1980, I told all the kids in 2^nd grade that I was California Tetherball Champion even though I had never even seen a tetherball before. I have what my shrink calls the “Dunning–Kruger effect.” It’s where a relatively unskilled individual mistakenly thinks their ability to perform tasks is much greater than it really is. I’m not convinced that’s what I have, though. In fact, I could diagnose people way faster than my doctor can. In fact, in med school they used to call me “Doctor Diag-yes” because I would diagnose people so fast.

Q: Is anybody on the Jazz worthy of a 2015 Chappys award?

@itschappy

Chappy! You, my friend, are a gentleman (not quite a scholar yet; keep hittin those books) and have quickly become a star in Utah social media and I respect the crud out of that. I was so ecstatic when I found out I had won my Chappy award last year that I told everyone in my family about it. It took roughly seven hours to explain it to my 88 year old grandma, but I think she finally got it. At least she stopped calling Twitter, “Tweety.”

If I were in charge of giving out the Utah Jazz-related 2015 Chappy Awards, these would be my winners:

• Allen Handy – The “Ugliest Hat-Hair After a Long Night’s Work” award.
• Dante Exum – The “Quickest Healer of Any Athlete Ever OMG He’s Ready for Opening Night!” award.
• Randy Rigby – The “Missed the Most Pack Meetings Because of Jazz Games” award.
• Dennis Lindsey – The “Looks and Sounds Exactly Like My Dead Uncle Rod and Scares the $H^% Out of Me Every Time I See/Hear Him” award.
• Jim Les – The “Worst Jazz Player of All Time” award.
• Kevin O’Conner – The “Best Jazz Employee Who None of Us Are Really Sure if He Even IS an Employee Anymore or Not” award.
• Tom Nissalke – The “Best at Getting Sick Once a Year and Sounding Like an Asthmatic Darth Vader on the Radio” award.
• David Locke/Hot Rod Hundley (tie) – The “Best at Interrupting Ron Boone Mid-Sentence” award.
• Ron Boone – The “Best at Getting Interrupted Because He Hasn’t Finished His Thought and Play is Resuming” award.
• Matt Harpring – The “LA Looks” award.
• Gail Miller – The “Keeping the Utah Jazz in Utah Forever No Matter How Much Money it Could Be Sold For” award.
• Jimbo Rudding – The “Best Mailbag In Fact So Good That Derek Fisher, Dick Bavetta, Jim Les, and Mark Jackson All Want to Apologize” award.
• Jason Hart – The “Who???” award.

Q: I’d like to know the best way to deal with the super sweaty guy who defends way too aggressively?

@spencerhall

I know exactly who you are talking about. Every pick-up game has at least one of these guys. He’s always a chubby guy who doesn’t get back on defense and insists on shooting threes. Also, besides the abundant amount of sweat he also has some funky B.O. I’m not talking about the, ”Wow, that guy needs a shower-B.O.” I’m talking about the “I could track his shot-chart by using only my sniffer-B.O.” I’m talking about the, “My wife’s thinking about leaving me-B.O.” It’s disappointing. You know what I mean?

There are a bunch of ways to deal with this type of guy. Here are a few things that I have tried that have worked:

• Say, “We’ll go shirts and you guys go sweatshirts.”
• Say, “Would you like a piece of gum before we start?” If he accepts say, “Would your armpits like a piece of gum as well?”
• Say, “Okay, it’s two to nothing. How about we take a break and towel off and talk about dirt bikes or something?”
• Say, “Anyone want to go swimming in a bathtub before we start playing?” and then stare into his eyes.
• Say, “If you’re going to sweat like that, the least you could do is tie a rope with a squeegee around your waist and drag it behind you while you play.”

There may be better ways to deal with this, but these are the ones that have worked for me. I’m generally not a mean person, but I think there are so many hard things we have to do in life and making your armpits NOT stink shouldn’t be one of them.

Q: What’s the over/under on the number of Chinese symbol tattoos on David Locke?

@dmcdoucherton

You gotta love David Locke. That dude works tirelessly to give us as much Utah Jazz coverage as is humanly possible. Another thing I love about him is that he is a Jazz fan and doesn’t apologize for it. He is a member of the media, but at times you can tell it is hard for him to separate his job and his fandom. I love that.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that he has a Jazz tattoo. I’m going to guess he has three of them. I’m guessing he has:

• The Chinese symbol for “Holy Cow!”
• The Chinese symbol for “Coffee!”
• The Chinese symbol for “Intense Drumming” (we don’t really have a word for it in English).

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Thanks for the questions everybody! It’s AWESOME to think that we are all creating a better world for our children one sweet mailbag at a time! Congrats!!!