Jimbo’s Mailbag – Jazz Player Workouts

(Photo by J Pat Carter/Getty Images)

Q:  Any insights into who the Jazz may be working out in the next couple of weeks?

@artdirector_g

Thanks for the question! As a matter of fact, I just got off the phone with my source in the Jazz front office, who coincidentally is also in charge of cleaning the Jazzez’s front office, and he gave me the rundown.

Here’s a list of the guys they have coming in for workouts soon:

• TJ Butcher – TJ is a 6’10” point guard who had a pretty good year at Alcove State University. He studied really hard for his English Lit test and got a C+ and since the teacher grades on a curve, he passed the class! Basketball wise he averaged a little over 44 points and twelve-teen rebounds a game. He’s a little on the scrawny side, but his agent has him on a strict diet of steak, rhubarb, and Netflix, so he’ll start bulking up soon enough. One of his down-sides is that he’s really into Legos. So much so that a few bricks have been known to fall out of his basketball shorts during practice. It only happened once in a game, though and it was only one of those 2×2 bricks so no one even noticed.
• Yasguf Amad – “Yaz,” as his teammates and marionettes call him, is a 19 year old from Gotland, which is an island just off the coast of Latvia. Incredibly, Yaz had never even seen a basketball until last fall when a couple of Italians became shipwrecked on his island and taught him how to play. They used a coconut as a ball and nailed a fish net frame to a palm tree to use as a hoop. It was quite a culture shock for Yaz when the Italians were finally rescued and brought him back to Italy to continue his training. Learning how to play in shoes and with a regular ball was difficult at first, but NBA scouts agree he’s getting the hang of it. One of the knocks on Yaz is they sometimes still catch him shooting with coconuts when he thinks no one else is in the gym.
• Bhunt Remezc – Standing just two feet, three inches tall, Bhunt (pronounced bug-NUT) is one of the shortest players the Jazz have ever brought in for a workout. Bhunt is surprisingly quick and an absolute wizard with the ball. Even though he isn’t big enough to dribble through his legs, he is able to get around defenders by using his low center of gravity and his tiny crutch.
• Steve Randleman – Steve is actually a concession stand manager at the Breslin Events Center, which is where the Michigan State Spartans play. He played a little basketball in high school, but he’s been absolutely KILLING it at the local rec center this last year and NBA scouts are starting to notice. Steve recently quit tobacco in all forms and now that he’s starting to get more exercise and take care of himself, the open sore on his leg has almost fully healed. Steve’s fundamentals need a lot of work, but one of his strengths is that he’s deceptively quick. Mostly because he fools defenders by limping around the court at the start of games. He also swears like a sailor, but that’s usually only if the sore on his leg gets bumped or another player mentions the time he accidentally dated his first cousin for a year.
• Gorpht – Gorpht was actually born “John Williams III” in Brunship, Lousiana, but he changed his name to “Gorpht” when he was 12 because he thought it sounded like a medieval warrior’s name. He has excelled at the game of basketball ever since he turned 13 and decided to stop LARPing full time. Even though he still owns an impressive arsenal of homemade weapons, the only thing he is focused on now is improving his basketball skills and surgically removing 17 very large moles on his shoulder.
• Genghis Khan – No relation to the former ruler of the Mongol Empire, Genghis emigrated with his parents to the United States from Canada. He was sent to an orphanage three years later after his parents were both arrested for stealing cans of compressed air for dusting electronics and spraying Wal-Mart cashiers in the face with them. (I’m not sure why they did that. It’s a sick world we live in.) Genghis played center on his high school team and just finished his first year of college at Keebler University where he averaged 11 points and 78 rebounds a game.

Q: Are the Jazz a Thon Maker away from a championship?

@JazzManZach

This is kind of a cool question because one of my best friends from high school almost has the exact same name only his name is “Thong Maker.” We all figured he’d grow up to either work for Victoria’s Secret or Teva, but he manages a Carl’s Jr. in Phoenix and sells his origami online. He also goes by “Tom” now.

I sat down and watched every player’s draft highlight video this week and I have a feeling that EVERY single draft prospect will be an NBA superstar. I haven’t gotten that excited watching videos since the night my girlfriend and I rented The Princess Bride for the first time. Although we didn’t watch most of it, wink wink. (We couldn’t understand what Andre the Giant was saying and got bored so we decided to make brownies.)

Thon Maker has pretty much everything going for him. He’s tall, has a good handle, is from Australia, likes dingos, adores babies, has an amazing jump shot, has a giant wingspan, likes long walks on the beach, plays stellar defense, is proficient at Microsoft Excel, and is a pleasure in the locker room. I say you have him come off the bench for Gordon Hayward and just watch the wins pile up.

Q: Does bad B.O. work to an offensive player’s advantage? If so, which Jazz player shows the most promise in using this technique?

@BiffyWyoming

Does having body odor give a basketball player an advantage? Pfffft, of course it does! The B.O. tactic has been used by mankind to get ahead since the dawn of time. I’ve used it to shorten meetings I never wanted to go to; my father used it whenever his in-laws were coming to dinner; and my grandpa used it on me so that I’d stop giving him anymore of my famous 30-second hugs.

If you think about it, it’s actually an ingenious idea. I mean, who wants to snuggle up to a guy who smells like a clump of old hair you just pulled out of a sink drain? No one. The answer is no one. So, if you want shorter dentist appointments or to stop being invited to gender-reveal parties, just hold off on showering for a few days, weed in the yard under a hot sun for an afternoon, and then go for a five-mile jog. Even your uncle who lost his sense of smell after getting hit in the head with a Aerobie would be like, “Dang, son! Time for a hosedown”

As far as which Jazz player would be most likely to use the B.O. technique—that’s a hard one because they’ve all smelled terrific every time I’ve been near them. I guess if I had to pick one guy, I’d probably go with Tibor Pleiss, but ONLY because when he runs he looks like the type of guy who could average around 16 accidental fart-slips a game.

Q: Is it true you’ve heard rumblings that Kevin Durant has basically made up his mind to sign with the Jazz this summer?

@Chief_Baconator

This may be the 17^th straight week I’ve had a Kevin Durant question…and I LOVE it!

To give you the short answer—yes, I HAVE heard rumblings that lead me to believe Kevin Durant will sign with the Jazz this summer, which is pretty amazing considering when he was here last December playing with the Thunder I visited him at his hotel and totally destroyed him at Connect Four. He got super upset and threw the ice bucket at the wall and then told me to leave. Even if he hasn’t formally apologized for the way he snapped at me, I’m glad that incident didn’t change his mind about deciding to sign with the Jazz.

People keep asking me where I hear these rumblings. The answer is—mostly in my head and in my car when I’m commuting to work alone. For some reason I always hear them while I’m driving. I’ll be heading down the freeway and suddenly I start thinking about how cool Kevin Durant dunk would look dunking in the new Pride uniform and next thing I know people are honking at me because I’m going 15 mph in the fast lane. I guess you could say it’s kind of like having a seventh sense. (My sixth sense is I can tell when a movie is going to be good or bad simply by watching the trailer.)

The most amazing part about Durant choosing to sign with the Jazz is that he turned down some pretty big cities and successful franchises. Utah Jazz fans aren’t used to big-name players doing that. Here is what I am hearing are some of the teams he turned down and his reasoning behind it:

• Miami Heat – Kevin doesn’t speak Spanish and also hates the beach, so those two things factored heavily in his decision not to sign with Miami. Also, he doesn’t like how ESPN always shows the Heat logo with animated fire when all the other logos are just images. He always suggested they put some storm clouds or lightning around the Thunder logo, but no one at ESPN ever followed through.
• Los Angeles Lakers – The Lakers are in the middle of a rebuild and Kevin wants no part of that. He wants a franchise that is already built and ready for him to move in and have good space for him to entertain. He wants to be the added-on section that makes the rest of the league be like, “Wait, was that built to code?” Yes, rest of the league. With Kevin, everything is built to code.
• Golden State Warriors – Although Durant has hinted he wouldn’t mind playing for the Warriors and winning multiple championships, he is deathly afraid of earthquakes. Ten minutes into the movie “San Andreas” he told his buddies he was going for Milk Duds and never came back. Basically the threat of any natural disaster scares the bejeebers out of him.
• Washington Wizards – KD was born in D.C. so his family and friends were really hoping he’d come home and play for the Wizards. The truth is, he’s not really into wizards as much as the normal human being. He’s never read or seen any of the Harry Potters and currently has no immediate plans to. Plus he’s already been to the Smithsonian like a billion times on field trips, so what’s the point?
• Oklahoma City Thunder – There was always the possibility of Kevin staying in OKC for the long haul, but in the end he felt like it was time to try something new. I guess Kevin is super into copper and when he heard about the Kennecott Copper Mine located in the beautiful Oquirrh mountains he was ready to sign with the Jazz then and there. Word is also that he was also getting pretty irritated with Enes Kanter’s lack of defense.

So there you have it. Durant’s totally sound reasoning. I admire that guy the more I get to know him. I can’t wait for next season!

Thanks for the questions, you guys! Remember to tell the guy who brings in the water bottles in your office about Jimbo’s Mailbag. Throw in an exorbitant amount of “if I say so myself’s” during the conversation. Make it weird.