Redneck

I am utterly wow I can't discrib it. I've been a Jazz season ticket holder for years and I have never seen anything like this. I thought this was another Jazz epic collapse and wow.

Utah use to be a good home team, but they've been terrible this year. Still better than on the road though. Though they have been playing better this week than they have all season, but this will still likely be a loss. They can't guard a closed door and James will shoot 35 free throws.

When they don't score for 6 minutes and committe 18 turns while turning a double digit lead into a double digit deficeit while at home.

I've always considered him a top player of the secondary elite. If the elite of the elite are guys like Lebron, Wade, Kobe, Duncan and Shaq, than Gilbert is someone like Deron Williams, Yao Ming, and Chris Bosh. Someone who is very very good, and someone who you can build a franchise around, but not somebody who's every going to be "that guy" in terms of NBA dominance. He's not a bad player by any means but he's not hall-of-fame caliber either.

I'm going with Dallas here. They have been playing very well as of late while Minny has been playing poorly. Minny's secondary is also banged up pretty bad, though I here Winfeild is going to play.

I like the Chargers here. They have a lot of weapons and are a lot more seasoned than the Jets. If you can pressure Sanchez he'll screw up.

Good. The Jazz dont need to do another dumbass trade. Boozer with the Jazz gives them a shot at the playoffs and the money that comes with making the playoffs(2 extra home games minimum) which can aleviate some of the pain of the cap hit.

Speaking as a fan from a team who has won 42 and 41 games and missed the playoffs this doesn't work. Firstly, if the same team was in the East they would have won more games. There is a reason a 42 win team misses the playoffs in the West; the west is stacked with very good teams were wins are hard to come by. Second, you're stuck with pretty much the same draft pick you'd had if you were the 8th seed but you're paying more and the expectations are higher. There isn't a lot of difference between pick 12 and pick 20 in most years. I'm also speaking as a fan of the NBA who wants to see great matchups. Yeah sometimes we get a Boston-Chicago series, but more often than not we end up with the Cleveland-Detroit series which just sucks.

Other than Jay Williams I cannot think of another player who got released due to breech of contract, and even with him the Bulls kept him around for another year. Even with all the stupid things the players do now days I haven't seen it.

I'm fully expecting 1 or 2 plus .500 western teams will not get in. Which kind of sucks, because if you're 500 you diserve to be in the playoffs. especially for a young team like the Thunder, Kings or even the Clippers(who are a game out of 500). I've thought for a while that maybe the NBA should adopt something similar to what Major League Soccer has done. There the best 8 teams make the playoffs reguardless of conference affiliation. So in the NBA the top 16 teams make it. The bottom 3 western teams would than play in the eastern playoffs. It would make for some nasty traveling but a Boston Celtics vs LA Clippers playoff bout would be fun to watch, probably a lot more interesting than a Celtics vs Bucks matchup.

The last year the Midwest division was around it sent 6 of it's 7 teams to the playoffs, and it's 7th team was Utah who won 42 games that year. Utah the 9th seed, and Portland the 10th seed had better records than the East 4th seed Miami

Favorite NFL Team: Buffalo Bills Favorite Player All-Time: Thurman Thomas Favorite Current Offensive Player: Alex Smith Favorite Current Defensive Player: Jarius Byrd Favorite Moment: The comeback. Number of Games Been to: 0 Players Met: Jim Kelly, Ryan Denney, Haloti Ngata(he played in the same bball rec league as I did before he was an NFL player), and some punter who played for the Browns for like 1 game in the 50s.(he was a friends grand father)

Lee Evans, Steve Smith(NYG), Steve Breaston.

While I'm not technically a liberal I will try to answer this question fairly and honestly. Many of the left, and even some in the middle and on the right, believe that terrorist or enemy combatants, or whatever you want to call them, need to be treated with the same dignity that we show to other captured individuals or criminals. They base this on two assumptions of law. First, the US is a partner to the Geneva convention which sets forth a series of rules for war and combat. One of these rules deals with the treatment of POW's. The article on POW's also mentioned partisans and other "insurgency" groups. Now as the US is a signor of this document it makes it law that they need to be treated in accordence with the Geneva Convention. The second assumption of law is based on the US's own legal codes, mainly the Constitution which gives anyone held in prison the writ of Habeus Corpis, Right to a speedy trial and so on. The courts have ruled time and again that these rights are granted to all Americans and cannot be abridged. The right is arguing that neither of these before mentioned laws apply because terrorist are not POW's because they are not acting in accordance to any recognized government. Domestic terrorist were held under basically the same principal until the courts ruled that they needed to either be tried or let free. So domestic terrorists are now classified as criminals. Now to my opinion. I think the US screwed up royaly when it held captured Taliban and Iraqi forces captive. Without a doubt these two are covered under the Geneva Convention. The Taliban may not have been recognized as the offical heads of state of Afghanistan, but they were the de facto rulers ergo they have protection. Saddam Hussein however was recognized as the head of the Iragi government so any soliders attempting to fight off the US invasion and who were captured are POW's in every sense of the meaning. So to torture them or subject them to humiliation is a war crime. However, since the conflict isn't technically over holding them is not. Al Qaida however is a different story. I have always thought they should be held as criminals, but tried in a military court were the burden of innocence is much higher than in US civillian court. As for the naked man pyramid. While it's technically wrong, it's not really that bad. In terms of historical punishment and humilation goes it's a slap on the wrist. Waterboarding however is banned and we should not be doing it. The US executed hundereds of Japanses officers for doing the practice during WWII.

A bit of a homer vote here, but I chose Milsap. Milsaps numbers are down this year, but he's playing behind Boozer and Okur and to some extent Kirilenko and is usually the 4th or 5th option on the floor, where as last year he was starting for a good portion of the season and was the second option.

The second threepeat squad was the better team. The first three was really Jordan and Jordan alone who won them their titles. The last three had a lot to do with Jordan, but they could beat you in so many other ways too. I think MJ's absence for a year and a half is also a major factor why the latter team is better. In that time Scottie Pippen had to become the man, and he did a good job in doing so and this allowed him to grow into a much better player. Add to that Dennis Rodman, who is one of the greatest defensive players of all-time and you make that team so much scarier. I don't think the 91-93 teams could have beaten the 96 Sonics, or the 97-98 Jazz because Ho Grant, while a solid defender, was not capible of shutting down Shawn Kemp or Karl Malone. Rodman didn't quit shut them down either, but he gave them fits and made them work incredibly hard. Toni Kukoch also gives the latter Bulls another deapth dimension that the earlier incarnation did not have. The early Bulls didn't have a 6th man consistantly able to cause matchup problems like the latter team did.

This was likely some creative journalism on the authors part. The Jazz needed to make a move because they had only 12 players and the CBA requires them to have 13. The move in question was the signing of Sundiyata Gaines. As for a trade. The Jazz have stated that everyone is available but D-Will. With that said, the Jazz may be trying to trade players like AK and Okur but realistically I don't see them being able to do either. Both have albatrosses for contracts and produce very little in comparison. The Jazz have also stated they will not add salary for next year, so they'd want an expiring contract in return. No NBA team, not run by Isiah Thomas, will trade an expiring contract for either of these huge deals without getting back draft picks or young talent. The Jazz really do not have either. They have the Knicks pick which they aren't going to move unless it nets them something really good, and their pick cannot be traded because if it's 17th or worse it belongs to the Timberwolves. This leaves really on Boozer, Korver and Brewer as tradible pieces. I have excluded Wes Matthews because his contract is so small that it's just stupid to trade. Any of those guys could fetch the Jazz something in return. In my opinion the most likely players to be moved are Brewer and or Korver packaged with CJ Miles. Jerry Sloan likes Boozer and the Jazz feel they may be able to re-sign him, so unless they get another all-star or lottery pick in return my guess is they wont trade him. The Jazz will trade one or two of their 2/3 guys because they have so many of them. The Jazz like Matthews and he seems to be a mix between Brewer and Miles(can play D and can actually hit a jumpshot) so if they have any interest in keeping him around, it makes those two expendible.

Thanks for the welcome all. lol, I think I had more than 2 posts. I think it was closer to 12. Not a lot of Jazz fans outside the two mega-Jazz communities on the net.

Its the whole guarenteed contracts thing. Though I would like to see some sort of mediation thing where a team and player could go to and have it settled so it doesnt drag on.

Nice win for the Jazz. Just wish they had played like this most the season.

I was a member here before, not sure what happened. But I'm posting in here again. I like this forum but I forget about it so I forget to come by and check things out.