Utah Jazz: Even More Motivation?
As if Derek Fisher hasn't provided enough inspiration for the Jazz, they might have yet another motivational device to employ before Game Three in Oakland: All-NBA team snubs.
Now, no Jazz player truly got snubbed from the All-NBA teams. The NBA is deep in individual talent right now, especially at the forward position. But the best players use everything to get fired up. And it isn't hard to imagine Carlos Boozer taking a long look at these teams and using his omission as fuel.
The Booze was 10th in the league in PER (the only guy in the top 13 that played in over 60 games and averaged at least 30 minutes that didn't make the team), 4th in rebounding, 6th in field goal percentage, and joined Duncan, KG, Bosh, and Zach Randolph as the only 20/10 guys in the NBA this year. Plus, Utah was the only 50-win team in the NBA that failed to place a guy on one of the three teams. Hard to keep a player like Boozer out of that mix.
And let's not forget about Deron Williams, as everyone seemed to do during the Most Improved voting. He was second in the league in assists at 9.3 per game and the rest of his numbers were right there with Billups. Of course, Kidd didn't make the team either, so maybe Williams can take solace in that.
I'm sure the announcement of the All-NBA teams was the last thing Golden State wanted to see.
3 comments:
You forgot to call him the Kingpin. Your boys over at Retire Sloan aren't going to like that. I didn't even think of Boozer getting slighted and when you look at the names Duncan, Dirk, KG, Bosh, LeBron, and Melo ... where do you put Boozer? For that matter, where the hell is Shawn Marion? And how does Amare make first team over LeBron? Now I'm pissed. Duncan plays center every f***ing game and now he's a forward and we've got a f***ed up team? Now I'm agitated, so thanks a lot.
Why Kingpin?
Hard to see which forward you leave off the list of those guys listed. Probably best would've been to consider Duncan a center, knock Amare to second team, Yao to third, Dwight Howard off altogether, to create space for Boozer.
That shuffle is really the only solution. LeBron should have been first team, Duncan should have been a center, and Howard was way too flawed to be all-NBA. But then the question becomes: Marion or Boozer? I would probably go for Booze, at the risk of making Marion feel even more underappreciated than he already does. It has been a rough award season for The Matrix.
The guys are Retire Sloan are trying to give Deron Williams the nickname "The Kingpin." Apparently Hot Rod Hundley is a bad source of Jazz nicknames so they are trying to be proactive. Also, this might help Linda Cohen from naming him D-Will. The Kingpin is good enough for me, so I'm trying to use it whenever possible. But I forgot last night.
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