Jimbo’s Mailbag – Which Jazz Player Will Have His Jersey Retired Next?

Should either of these former Jazzmen have their jerseys retired? (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)

Welcome to the next edition of Jimbo’s Mailbag! At Salt City Hoops, we know that covering a losing team without any humor can be dreary. As such, we decided to add a little bit more levity to our site via Jimbo’s unique outlook on the world of 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: If Gordon Hayward were…um…not white, would he be more respected? Would Delonte West vote him an All-Star?

@FakeReaganDiary

I think I know what you’re getting at here. You mean if he, Gordon, were Asian? Yeah, I’m not going to touch that question, so I’ll just answer the second one.

I think Delonte West WOULD vote Gordon Hayward an All-Star this year. I’m sure he has noticed and is impressed with the improvement in Gordon’s strength and defense, as he watches from his tiny apartment in Poland where he currently plays for the Suchy Ucho Dragons.

I remember that Delonte West “dry willy” like it was yesterday. It still remains one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen in an NBA game. I remember it as being the time I realized that maybe I would like this Gordon Hayward kid. The fact that he, as a young player, got under the veteran West’s tattooed skin was fun to see. I just feel bad that Hayward had to go into quarantine that night and miss all those games while the surgeons tried vigorously to remove the alien serpent from Gordon’s ear canal.

Q: What jersey number will be the next retired by the Utah Jazz? Will anyone’s from the era of the Western Conference Finals team of 2006-2007?

@the6bees

Another great question from the 6 bees! I love how all 6 bees just go about their day making honey and brainstorming questions for Jimbo’s Mailbag. It’s awesome! Keep it up!

I’ve thought about the 2006-2007 roster many times, mainly because I think that Game 7 against the Rockets was the craziest, funnest, bestest Jazz game since the Finals years. There were a lot of good storylines during that series from Tracy McGrady being too tired to Andrei Kirilenko crying during practice to the death of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin. It was a crazy time for all of us.

Game 7 gave us one of the ultimate, “No, no, no…YES!” moments in Jazz history when AK took a three pointer with five minutes left and the Jazz down by three. AK gave us A LOT of those moments during his career here, but none more memorable than that one.

But back to answering your question: If the Utah Jazz HAD to retire a number from that team, realistically they would probably only consider Matt Harpring, Paul Millsap, Andrei Kirilenko, or Memo Okur.

I don’t know all of the criteria for retiring numbers. I mean, sometimes I think if the Jazz retired Adrian Dantley and Darrell Griffith’s numbers, then why not retire the number 54 because that’s the number of Jazz “item of the night” t-shirts I’ve purchased that shrunk four sizes after washing them once.

If I had to pick just one from that team, I’d have to go with Millsap…or Memo…or both of them. Maybe even all of them? I don’t know, just retire everyone’s number from now on. Maybe we should just stop putting numbers on jerseys. Instead, how about we put the name of that player’s favorite Sheryl Crow song?

Q: Having Jimmer follow you was an accomplishment. Where does it rank in your life’s greatest moments?

@GarrettHadley

Oh man! What a week it was for me! I checked my email on Monday morning and low and behold, there it was—Excalibur. The mother of all emails. Something I had been working towards for approximately two years. I just sat there and stared at it, reading it over and over again; making sure that it was real.

“ Jimbo, you have a new follower on Twitter. JIMMER FREDETTE!”

I just want to give a shout out to Jimmer for enduring two years of my nonsense. He could have blocked me so many times. Especially after that joke last June where I told him about the sounds I can make using only the back of my knee and a Pringles can. I’m actually REALLY surprised he didn’t blocked me when I told him about how my cousins found their Nintendo controller after my aunt had her gastric bypass surgery.

I understand why it took so long too. You never know what rabid fans are capable of doing. I imagine it can be pretty overwhelming being in the spotlight all the time and having weirdos continually asking for autographs and/or pictures with him. Pffft, what a bunch of weirdos!

Where does it rank among my greatest accomplishments? It definitely ranks among these:

• When I passed Algebra 2 in high school.
• When I single-handedly got Hostess products to come back.
• The time I did the splits at the skating rink, even though it was an accident and was excruciatingly painful. No one could tell.
• The time I had the school bully believing that Channel 5 news was coming to our school to do a story on him and his ability to do cool tricks with a cigarette lighter.
• The time I won five dollars by eating 60 donut holes in 30 minutes.
• The time I convinced Mr. Sizemore to pair me up with Katie Humphries for our chemistry project.
• The time I convinced Katie Humphries to discuss our chemistry project while parked at Squaw Peak in my brother’s Dodge Neon.

Q: Burke, Evans, and Hayward all make it on Jeopardy. Who correctly answers the most in the category: Scenes from Titanic?

@Steeleman77

Another great question from Steeleman!

This is a hard one because both Evans and Hayward are married, so I’m sure they’ve had the chance to watch Titanic multiple times. Also, they both have a soft side to their personality, which means they probably even own Titanic on DVD.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they contemplated buying Titanic after pulling it out of the five-dollar DVD bin at Wal Mart like the rest of us did. It also wouldn’t surprise me if they maybe placed the DVD underneath a six-pack of Rockstars or a giant bag of beef jerky and made quick small talk with the cashier in the hopes that she wouldn’t notice. Then maybe they hurriedly grabbed the bag from that giant bag-carousel and speed-walked out the door only to realize that they accidentally took someone else’s bag by mistake and had to go back into the store. Once they got back, they noticed a bunch of girls giggling because the cashier told them about how this tall guy just came through her line and bought Titanic.

Burke is younger, so he probably isn’t too familiar with one of the greatest films in cinematic history. However, I would totally be willing to schedule a “guys night” at my house so that the rest of the team and I can introduce him to it while we make friendship bracelets for each other.

If I had to pick one, I guess I would probably say Jeremy Evans would get more of the Jeopardy questions correct.

PLEASE do not let this go any further than this internet mailbag, but I actually own multiple copies of Titanic. I own the VHS, DVD, Digital file, BluRay, HD DVD, Laser Disc, as well as numerous clips I downloaded from YouTube.

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Thanks for all the questions everyone!