Jimbo’s Mailbag – Latest Jazz Rumors and Jazz Mount Rushmore

Photo by Bart Young/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: Always tough to face offseason of summer league. Any ideas to get through the next 11 months until NBA starts again?

@SpamIsDelish

Great question! It’s funny you should ask that, because I was just thinking how much I hate the NBA blackout months where basketball news slows down and football speculation ramps up. After the NBA schedule comes out in a few weeks, there really won’t be any Utah Jazz news until training camp starts in September. In the meantime, we get to listen to local sports talk radio break down which college football coaches wear tan khakis best or which offensive linemen could eat the most rotisserie chickens by himself. No offense to you football losers, but what a waste of radio time.

You have to keep your mind busy or you’ll spend most of every day being upset that basketball is over. Just like your kids, you may even start laying on the ground whining and complaining about being bored. Then you have to promise to take them to the splash pad later so they’ll leave you alone for a few minutes. It’s like, they don’t even appreciate that the DVR is at 97% and you have to get through six episodes of Cake Boss before you can even THINK about leaving the house.

Some activities I enjoy doing to keep my mind occupied include:

• Watching Jazz highlight videos on YouTube.
• Making a list of former Jazz players I’ve met.
• Making a list of former Jazz players who have refused my invitation to dinner at IHOP.
• Watching Encino Man.
• Writing poems about Ron Boone.
• Photoshopping my head onto Jazz players’ bodies.
• Photoshopping my head onto NBA players’ girlfriends’ bodies.
• Prank-calling Jim Les.
• Doing the Boot Scootin’ Boogie in my garage.
• Practicing for my purple belt exam while listening to Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” (also in my garage).
• Check Facebook to see if there are any more videos of my nephews and nieces doing gymnastics.
• Perform various pranks on the Schwan’s guy.

There are a few more things that I like to do, but that’s how I spend the majority of my summers.

Q: If you could put Adam Keefe’s hair (cut, color, and style) on 5 of our current Jazz players, who would you pick & why?

@Mikeyvp

Oh, Adam Keefe. That guy just up and disappeared, didn’t he?

Before Dell Schanze came along and kicked that owl, Adam Keefe was considered the most famous ginger in Utah. His hair wasn’t too off-the-wall crazy. It was just a clean, conservative look, and I respect the crud out of that. In fact, he probably spent years going to into Supercuts and saying, “Give me the ‘dad’ cut!”

As far as Keefe’s hair on other players, well, here you go:

• Trey Burke – It’d be fun to see Trey with a little more hair on top. Hopefully it would somehow help his shooting percentage?
• Rudy Gobert – Adding Keefe’s hair would give him an extra 2–3 inches of height, which would turn him into the most unstoppable middle-aged-looking center in the league.
• Tibor Pleiss – It would be cool if Tibor had Keefe’s red hair because then I would be able to recognize him. I know it’s entirely my fault, and I have no excuse what with the internet being a thing these days, but I still have no idea what Tibor even looks like. I know he’s tall, but so was Cesar Romero and I wouldn’t be able to recognize him either. ***First one to tweet me and tell me what movie has the line, “Cesar Romero was tall” in it gets a retweet and an air-five.***
• Jack Cooley – Jack already is pale enough to pass as a member of the Keefe family, so adding the hair could potentially cause Grandpa and Grandma Keefe to mistake him for a distant cousin.
• Joe Ingles – It would be kind of cool to see Ingles with the Keefe hair. In fact, they could pass as brothers, I’ll bet.

Q: Saw Rushmore of Jazz best list. Boring! Please share Rushmore picks of Jazz weasels. I’m carving Derek Fisher first. Who else?

@JimmerFrodette

If I could, I’d construct a Jazz weasel Mount Rushmore of just four copies of Jim Les. Ugh, I can’t stand that guy.

Here’s your Jazz weasel Mount Rushmore list:

Derek Fisher

You are correct in assuming Derek Fisher would be first on the mount. If you’re any kind of Jazz fan at all, you should know why Fisher deserves to be here. I feel like I’ve run this topic into the ground, probably because I have … multiple times. But just on the small chance there is a young Utah Jazz fan reading this, Derek Fisher weaseled his way out of several contracts. I’m expecting him to weasel out of New York pretty soon here.

Mark Jackson

Like Fisher, Mark Jackson only spent one season with the Jazz. However, during that one season Jackson was able to create some locker room drama that would make a crowd of 12-year-old girls be like, “Dang, Mark. That’s cold.” I’m not sure how in the world he thought he would be able to start in front of John Stockton. No one was going to be OK with that. Not the coach, not the front office, not the fans, and not Karl Malone.

Carlos Boozer

Oh Carlos Boozer. What happened to you? We had a good thing going back in the late 2000’s and then you “heard a pop” and decided to sit out some pretty important games. Oh yeah, the fact that you weren’t endearing to fans, you didn’t have the ability to play defense, and you yelled at Memo a lot were black marks too. In my criticism of Carlos Boozer, I will always look back at his 35 points and 14 rebounds in Game 7 against the Rockets and feel ashamed of myself. However, that isn’t enough to keep him off the mount.

Enes Kanter

We all know how much Jazz fans love defense. So, when you don’t play defense, it’s hard to win over hearts in SLC. Sadly, that is only ONE of the reasons Kanter deserves a spot on the mount. Another thing that Jazz fans love is loyalty. Let’s be honest: we Jazz fans have an inferiority complex. We have a hard time when free agents don’t want to play here because our Targets close at 10 p.m. and our dance club only plays Roxette. But we have a harder time when players DO play here, demand a trade, GET traded, and then come back and diss everything except for our moutains. Guess what, Enes? EVERYONE likes our mountains!

Every time I make a list like this, someone always asks me why I didn’t add so-and-so and I feel really dumb. So, who did I miss?

Q: Rumor has it Tibor Pleiss is going to be money. Like serious Euros and Pesos. Any other fresh Jazz rumors you are hearing?

@BardenPembleton

I am pretty excited to see what Quin Snyder can do with Tibor Pleiss, or “Big Toblerone,” as I like to call him. I assume because of his size alone that he will play some significant back-up minutes next season. Then again, if Trevor Booker and Trey Lyles play well, Snyder could elect to go small. I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that I don’t really know what’s going to happen. I can’t see the future. There was a time a few months ago after I hit my head in my garage where I thought I could predict the weather, but I lost whatever that was after a few days.

Here is yet another list of some of Jazz rumors I’ve been hearing lately:

• The ESA technicians are trying to adjust the color and brightness settings on the jumbotron, but they can’t find the remote. They think it’s somewhere in Dennis Lindsey’s office because he had his kids and their friends in there recently. They’ve already looked in the couch cushions a bunch of times, so don’t suggest that.
• Jazz scouts are traveling to Uzbekistan this month to get a look at 15 year old Temurbek Akmal. Apparently he is wowing everybody with his free throw shooting. He currently holds the Guinness world record for consecutive free throws made with 496. He made free throws for almost three hours. His coaches were speculating that he missed the 497^th free throw on purpose because The Bachelorette was about to start.
• Dennis Lindsey has quietly refuted reports that he is trying to eventually create an all-lefty Jazz team.
• I heard rumors that the Jazz front office had to sit down with Matt Harpring and let him know that they will not tolerate his missing any more Jazz games next season. They began to be suspicious when they noticed a pattern of him not showing up for road trips to Minnesota, Milwaukee, and Oklahoma City.
• Rumor also has it that Quin Snyder had to privately ask Joe Ingles to cut down on his use of the word “Crikey!” during practice.
• I’m hearing reports of Crown Burger adding a second story to their restaurant in an effort to allow for more seating. They also have a plan to publicly explain why the cashiers always say, “Are you sure you want that?” when you try to order the Souvlaki Stick.

Those are all the rumors I’ve heard lately. Like I said, you don’t really hear much until September.

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Thanks for the questions, you guys! Remember, tell your friends and family about the mailbag and let’s see if we can get it mentioned on the news or The Bachelorette or whatnot.