Jimbo’s Mailbag – New Eye-Opening Stats

Jesse D. Garrabrant/utahjazz.com

Welcome to the next edition of Jimbo’s Mailbag, our regular dose of levity here at Salt City Hoops. In each mailbag, Jimbo answers your burning questions with his unique outlook on 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: I’m scared. Are the two Aussies and the two Frenchies going to be deported in January? Is it time to tank?
@mahalkasi1

You SHOULD be scared. President Trump is coming for our players. His agenda has been leaked and he’s headed to Utah first thing and he’s sending them all home. It’s definitely time to tank. What else is there to do? The Utah Jazz are/is cursed; it’s the Bavetta Curse and it knows no mercy!

The good news is, there’s a D-League player the Jazz have their eye on right now who is a dead-eye shooter. His name is William Anderson and he apparently killed it in some rec league in Kansas City, where he’s from. He was born without a nose, but he wears a prosthetic that has only fallen off four times since the beginning of last year, so it shouldn’t be a distraction. I guess the plan is to have him replace Dante Exum?

In all seriousness, I believe we’ll be just fine­–Jazz players included. We have checks and balances in this country that keep our leaders in…check. The only thing that really matters is that we’re nice to each other and we treat others with the respect they deserve.

Actually, I have to confess. I stole all that from my aunt Carol’s Facebook page. She’s always been really good with words and I’ve been reading it over and over because I’m big-time freaking out right now. I even started digging a bunker in my backyard. My neighbors were nosy and asked what I was doing so I told them I’m putting in a pool. They got excited for the pool and have been helping me every evening. It’s super awkward, but I don’t know how to tell them they’re really digging a bunker. The worst part is, there won’t be enough room for them to live in my bunker. I’m super nervous to tell anyone at this point. I mean, we dug an extra couple of feet so that it’ll be deep enough for adults to dive in. In reality, that extra few feet will allow me to put a jacuzzi tub in.  They even made a goal to get the pool all dug and cemented before Thanksgiving. Ugh, pray for me.

Q: What kind of campaign would the Jazz Grandmas run? Sidebar: I’ll buy the Dippin’ Dots if you buy the tix. Game soon?
@jboz92

Wait…you see them too?! Like, the grandmas who come to games in their pink Jazz jerseys? Whew, I’ve spent the last four years or so trying to determine if they were real or just figments of my imagination…or even worse—ghosts haunting the arena. Oh man, I’m so relieved to find out they’re real. YES! What a wonderful time to be alive!

It’s not that I was scared of them being ghosts, per se. It’s more that I’m scared of going nuts without knowing it. Ever since I was in junior high, whenever I had down time I would imagine elderly twins doing fun stuff together. Not exactly sure why I did that. I guess we all have our things, right? I mean, I’m a totally normal guy now. Sure there was the one time I was arrested for rollerblading in a bikini inside a Costco, but I never meant to harm anyone and the cops didn’t care that I did it because I dared myself to do it. They said it was still against the law and I had to do the time. Again, we’re all a little weird. But that’s neither here nor there. Back to answering your question…

The point is, when I was growing up I wasn’t allowed to watch The Simpsons and so I used to sit in my room and have pretend conversations with Herb and Gene. They were my imaginary elderly twin friends and they were HILARIOUS. We used to just sit and talk about all sorts of things from gardening to our favorite noble and inert gases. Sadly, Herb and Gene both died after being sucked into a mosh pit and trampled at a Smashing Pumpkins concert. RIP guys.

So, now that we’ve established that the pink grandmas ARE real,…I just can’t get over how awesome that is. So releived. You guys don’t even know. Anyway, I guess we can focus on their imaginary campaign for President. I think they’re slogan could be “You’re With Us!” or something like that. I don’t know; politics isn’t my thing. I’m just glad they’re real. You have NO IDEA how freaked out I used to get at games when they’d show them on the jumbotron.

I’m always up for a game. How about you buy the Dippin’ Dots AND the tickets and I’ll come to your house and do two free halftime acts for your family and/or up to 10 guests?

Q: I have a hunch you have some custom stats you’ve been tracking so far this year. Would you share a few of the most surprising?
@the6bees

Great question! I most certainly DO track custom stats during the season with help from my source on the Jazz coaching staff. (We’ll call him coach Emmanuel Lewis.)

I first started keeping track of these stats because I felt bad for the players who didn’t score a lot or had a hard time getting playing time. This way they could look at these other numbers and hopefully feel better about their contributions to the team.

Like, one time in 1993 I saw Adam Keefe at the mall and he was very surprised to find out that he led the team in pointing at things. He was ahead of Felton Spencer by almost 25 pointings.

Here are a few other custom stats coach Emmanuel Lewis and I have been tracking this season:

• Dante Exum leads the league in mouth-breaths with 3,267.
• Boris Diaw and David Locke are currently tied for the most caffeine consumed and the most times a person in the organization has yelled “WOOO!” for no particular reason.
• The Jazz coaching staff as a whole leads the league in saying the phrase, “Frickin’ injuries!”
• Raul Neto has said the word “Caramba!” 487 times under his breath. Surprisingly, Derrick Favors is second with 433.
• Jeff Withey leads the team in the number of visible cowlicks.
• Joel Bolomboy dresses in his uniform the fastest.
• Joe Ingles has coughed almost 1,600 times since training camp began. That’s more than double the amount of coughs of any other player on the team.

Out of all the stats this season, the most surprising one is that Joe Johnson types 75 words per minute. Who knew?!

Q: What’s the deal with Shelvin Mack?
@drawsmalls

Right? I’m not sure what’s going on. Last year after the trade I thought he came in and took over the starting role pretty well. I mean, he probably wasn’t scouted all that much and that could have attributed to his hot start, but man we’re seeing a completely different player so far this year.

What’s frustrating to me is that Raul Neto looked pretty good in preseason and I’m not sure he would do much worse if given the chance. I know you don’t want to mess with Miggity Miggity Mack’s confidence, but some of his turnovers lately are just brutal. Like the one where he traveled because he put the ball under his jersey and started telling the other players that he was pregnant. What was that all about?

Maybe it’s like in the movie The Natural and he’s dating some messed-up Kim Basinger type? Maybe he was poisoned at a cocktail party??? No, calm down. That’s not what happened. He’s probably just in a slump right now. Maybe I’ll see if I can get a hold of Glenn Close and see if she can come to the next few games?

Q: Have you ever tried to sneak down to the lower bowl at a Jazz game?
@Mikeyvp

Have I?… I have. And let me be the first to say that I am truly sorry.

It was a dishonest mistake, but I never meant to hurt anyone. I was just sitting in the upper bowl and I looked down and became fed up with people being rich and not showing up to games. So, I did what most red-blooded Americans would do in that situation—I tried to get something for nothing.

I walked right past the usher and found the first empty seat I could. I don’t usually do things like that so it was incredibly nerve-wracking. My palms were sweaty and my knees were weak and mom’s spaghetti and all that.

The scariest part was, I was wearing Old Navy painter jeans and I thought for sure the usher would easily be able to spot them and instantly become suspicious. I also had on one of those silk-screened jerseys. You know, the cheap one with the wider shoulders? Anyway, it was visibly apparent that I didn’t belong in the lower bowl, but somehow I was able to dodge Betty the usher and her hawk-like eyes that night.

I do not condone that sort of behavior no matter the circumstances and I hereby vow to NEVER do that again… unless there’s like 50 seats that are empty and it’s past halftime and I’m wearing my nicer jeans and Betty is taking a bathroom break. But that’s it.

Thanks for the questions this week, you guys! Remember to tell people manning the kiosks at the mall about Jimbo’s Mailbag. Before every sentence say, “Not to be mega gross or anything, but…” Make it weird.