Jimbo’s Mailbag – Gordon Hayward’s Slumpbuster

(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Q: Just heard the Utah Jazz have no ideas for halftime acts after next week’s needlepoint demonstration. Know anyone with ideas?

@JimmerFrodette

I’m so glad you let me know about this! I’ll be sure to buy tickets for the game with the needlepoint demonstration halftime show; that sounds like a good one.

It kind of surprises me that the Jazz don’t have halftime acts scheduled out to the end of the season. I figured they were more organized than that. There’s nothing worse than delaying your much needed bathroom break and getting all excited for a sweet halftime show only to realize there IS no halftime show and you have to wait 15 minutes in a line to use the men’s bathroom!

As far as knowing anyone with halftime ideas, I know the perfect person and his name is yours truly. Actually, his name is Yurs Troole and he’s a Danish circus performer known for his brilliant halftime ideas. But since Yurs isn’t available, here’s a few ideas I’ve been working on:

• I bring my homemade catapult onto the court and charge people $5 to catapult their kid into a pile of coats.
• I fill an above-ground pool with very expensive scarves and the crowd just watches me swim around in it for 20 minutes.
• I sit center court on a tall stool with a puppet named Hairy Sloan and we just sit and reminisce about past Jazz games. (WARNING: This act may contain offensive language.)
• I throw DVD copies of the movie “Inside Out” into the stands, except for inside the case is a DVD-R with a slideshow of pictures of my various vacations set to Technotronic’s “Pump Up The Jam.”
• I do a couple of basic tricks on rollerblades that cause a bunch of elderly people in the crowd to forget about their arthritis for a few precious moments.
• I announce that the first person who can tell me the capital of New Hampshire wins my brother’s old Notre Dame sweatshirt. *****First person to tweet me the capital of New Hampshire gets a retweet.*****

Q: What can Gordon do to get out of his slump? Do you have any home remedies or ideas for signs we can bring to inspire him?

@thatcho

Well, last night against the Nuggets he looked like he is certainly heading in the right direction. It took him three quarters, but he finally looked comfortable and confident and that’s really all he was lacking, in my opinion.

I still think there are a few things he could try at home that would probably boost his energy or help with his concentration on the court. Here are a few things he could do to mix things up a little:

• Drink any and all essential oils he can get his hands on. Especially the lavender ones.
• Get out a shoe box of old pictures and just sigh to himself for a few hours.
• Drive to Beaver, Utah and use the bathroom at the Flying J. There’s a weird toilet sitting out in the open with no stall around it. Word has it that whoever is brave enough to use it will have good luck for a year.
• Go into some Internet chat rooms dedicated to geocaching and rip those punks a new one for absolutely no reason at all. This always helps me perform better at my job.
• Duct tape an empty fast food soda cup to the top his car and drive up and down State Street waving at people.
• Go to Petsmart and ask multiple employees which species of fish tend to make the best friends.
• Build a voodoo doll of Jim Les and throw it against the wall a couple hundred times.

As far as signs you could bring to the arena, how about some of these:

• “Go Hayward! (Can you reimburse me for the cost of the materials I used for the making of this sign?)”
• “Your ability to put a ball in a basket will determine my happiness for the next 12 hours!”
• “How about you play better?”
• “Drink essential oils!”
• “Bend your knees more!”
• “Fisher Lied”

There are probably other signs that would be more motivating than the ones I came up with, but it’s a start.

Q: Call me crazy, but I think Trey Burke is really tough and is working hard to get even better. When does Hayward get off IR?

@SpamIsDelish

Yeah, I have to agree with you about Trey. I’ve been critical of his play (as have we all) of late, but he’s put together a fairly nice string of games.

When it comes down to it, there are three things that Trey needs to do for Jazz fans to like him more:

1. Grow five inches – There’s not a whole lot he can do about this one… or is there? I’ve heard that NASA has some experimental machines they wouldn’t mind him testing. If that doesn’t work, he could also try drinking the growth-promoting essential oils. I would suggest the lavender ones.
2. Get better at defense – He really needs to work at this. If you are quick enough to consistently score 10–20 points in an NBA game, then you are quick enough to play average defense against other point guards.
3. Get more tattoos of babies – It’s common knowledge that Utahns have a weakness for babies. Seeing more of them on his body will only endear us to him more.

As far as Hayward: he came off the IR before last night’s game in Denver. So, there’s no need to worry about him at all for the rest of the season and playoffs.

Q: Didn’t the term “Jazz Hands” come from the method that Mark Eaton used to block shots?

@Bulkles

That’s 100 percent correct! Wow, you sure do know your Utah Jazz history!

Actually, us Jazz fans are still bitter about the dance industry stealing the term. Before “Jazz hands” they used to call it “wiggly bits,” which shows why they were so eager to change it.

Another not-so-well-known fact is that Mark Eaton is a terrible dancer. He was politely asked to leave most of his high school dances and later in life he broke multiple people’s noses the first three times he tried the Macarena.

Q: How does Vivint change the culture of the Jazz?

@SLCJuanB

Well, it will sure make it more orange, I’ll tell you what!

Really the only thing I know about Vivint culture is that my cousin had to sleep on the floor of an apartment for a whole summer so that he could make enough money for the plane ride home.

So, in a nutshell, I would say Vivint doesn’t change the culture of the Jazz at all.

Q: Has there ever been a time in your life when you have been allowed within 400 yards of an elementary school?

@josh_barrus22

Easy, my friend. That was one isolated incident and the cops even admitted they got the wrong guy.

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Thanks for the questions, friends! It’s because of you guys that this mailbag is on the verge of going viral every week. Keep it up!