Fun Time with Jerry...and Mandy Harpring

Given the fact the Jazz have lost five out of their last seven heading into the most important stretch of the season, you would think I would want to write about what’s gone wrong for the team on the verge of destroying an incredible year. Nah. Let’s talk about Ronnie Brewer’s stint as a journalist during the three minute KJZZ segment shown at half time on Saturday night’s game against Memphis. NBA League Pass viewers, Dyl, you need to know what you are missing.

Apparently, Ronnie Brewer majored in broadcast journalism at the University of Arkansas. KJZZ producers decided it would be fun to let Jazz fans see the 22-year-old rookie cover a celebrity fundraiser put on by Jerry Sloan’s Hand-to-Hand charity. The original segment was aired during the LA massacre on Friday, then during our blow-out of Memphis on Saturday we were given a second “behind the scenes” piece about Brewer’s “budding reporting career.

The combination of purposeful and inadvertent comedy was better than when Bill O’Reilly squirmed through his appearance on the Colbert report. I have watched the segment no less than 17 times.

It begins with a clip of Ronnie wearing a burgundy blazer and ½ inch diameter diamond earrings. He explains to the camera that TV reporting is his “back-up plan” in case basketball doesn’t, you know, “work out.”

An immediate cut to Ronnie shyly receiving instructions from some female KJZZ producer while intensely gripping the microphone like a 10-year-old grips a baseball bat in little league.

This scene is followed by a montage showing Ronnie stumbling through his introduction to the segment a minimum of five times. The difficult line? “Thanks Steve, I’m here at the Huntsman Cancer Institute to bring you a taste of Mardi Gras in the Mountains.” (The version they broadcasted has Ronnie blinking nearly 100 times in 5 seconds and annunciating as if he is storing a sucker somewhere in his mouth.)

Cut.[1] Brief shot of someone I can only assume is another producer observing the proceedings and saying, “I think he needs cue cards.” CJ Miles, who for some reason is along for the ride, sits behind the camera and shakes his head. Miles obviously doesn’t know how to react to his close friend and teammate unintentionally revealing that he didn’t go to a single class during his stint as a “student athlete.”

Then, a scene of Ronnie addressing how he “stuttered” through his first couple of lines and how the whole thing “didn’t go so well.” The next scene is of Miles saying in an awkward cracking voice, “Well, I’m just going to say this…my momma said, ‘You can do anything you put your mind to.’ So, I’m in no place to wreck the man’s dreams.”

In journalism, this is what we call the telling detail.

Fade to Ronnie again working with the producers. With the bright lights of the camera blaring down on him, Ronnie is confused about whether or not he is supposed to introduce himself as “Ronnie Brewer.” Desperate at this point, the producers go searching for someone, anyone to help out.

For no apparent reason, Mandy Harpring, who is a doctor at LDS hospital, is enlisted. Cut to Mandy Harpring sitting next to Brewer working in an intense one-on-one session. Yes, indeed, you introduce yourself with your own name not someone else’s.

Then, cut to Mandy giving praise only a woman who has spent far too much time in Utah could make, “If the basketball thing doesn’t work out. I think he’s got a future here.” Mrs. Harpring could sell air conditioners to Eskimos.

Then, jump cut. All of a sudden the piece becomes a combination of a David Lynch film and Hertzog documentary. Wearing his maroon blazer, Ronnie is clutching the microphone with Sloan next to him. Sloan is wearing a curly blond mullet wig with a baseball hat on top. Fake hair reaches nearly the middle of his back. It looks like a party favor purchased at Cahoots, a possible good bye gift of John Amaechi before he was shipped off to Houston. The coach has definitely had a few and is swaying a bit.

Ronnie is stumbling for words. He seems to have a very tough question for his coach on the tip of his tongue. My mind is wild with anticipation. “Why the hell do you continue to start a 6’1’’ point guard out of position, making your team vulnerable to monumental offensive outbursts every time they play an all-star caliber shooting guard—which the team will absolutely be doing in the playoffs. I mean are you really going to have Derek Fisher guard Tracy McGrady?”

I’m a about to pee my pants waiting for the question, when Ronnie shakes his head out of what seems like intense contemplative thought and stumbles through the following sentence, “Coach. ..erh...um…are you having fun tonight?”

Sloan is giddy like a high school girl who just found out she doesn’t have to tell her parents about the abortion. “Ronnie, I am…I think I’m having too much fun.”

—DDD

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[1] Remember there is a rule in TV production that says a you can’t stay with a single shot without cutting for more than 4 seconds—if you don’t believe me next time you’re watching the tube count down the seconds before each cut. If you want to know why there is an entire generation of ADHD adults 15 years from now, this is why. If Ronnie had actually gone to a class at University of Arkansas, he might know this as well.

The Tortoise and the Hare

Jerry Sloan versus Don Nelson. "Safety First" versus "Look out, below!" Golden State felt like the team in high school gym class that's filled with all the "cool" kids. The Jazz perfectly played the part of math squad geeks that practice jumpers in the driveway, but only after doing their home work. To complete the scene, the director decided to dress Jerry in a bright orange and purple diagonal-striped tie.

"Now Coach, whenever the camera pans your direction imagine that you have lost control of your lower jaw, like its just flapping in the breeze…BUUHHHH. A look of complete and total bewilderment. Every time the other team scores a 3-pointer imagine you've come home, except your home's no longer there—it's been burned to the ground. Great! That's the look."

Jerry: "I wasn't doing anything."

Director: "Don't be so modest. With the tie, it's perfect!"

(Photo by Getty Images, copyright 2007)
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DDD

Sloan's deep dark secret...or, how I learned to love Giricek anyway

A month ago, if the Peppermill would have given me the odds, I’d have bet a week’s unemployment check to say there’s evidence Kevin O’Connor seriously considered slipping Gordon Giricek some roofies after the Jazz’ December 20 game. He envisioned wrapping Gira up in a hotel rug and dragging him to Billy Knight’s house in an Atlanta suburb and ringing the doorbell. When Knight answered, Giricek would be laying unconscious on his porch with a note around the neck saying, “You have no idea what this means. Everyone in the league appreciates your helping us out in our time of need. ”[1]

It’s hard to believe I’m saying this but…when the team played Cleveland on Saturday, they actually missed Gira—in a positive way. Recently, he’s hitting open jumpers and can now take a dribble or two and hit a bank shot. His frozen-rope 15-footer doesn’t look pretty, but it’s starting to drop through the white twine. On defense, the Croatian claiming to be a NBA veteran actually stays in front of his man—mainly by doing an awkward herky-jerky dance near them that confuses his opponent into thinking actual defense is being played. No longer do the Jazz have a corpse laying on the perimeter.

Why was Giricek getting minutes instead of Ronnie Brewer? Ronnie finishes well around the hoop, stays in front of his man on defense, and rebounds well. All things Giricek has not done this entire season, until late last month. Trying to figure out the possible reasons Sloan wouldn’t play Brewer has resulted in no less than four hours worth of conversations between my brother and I that went something like this…one of us calling the other in the middle of a game, not even saying “hello” and then simply delivering the following sentence: “Damn it. What the hell? I mean seriously, what the [expletive]?”

The response: “I know. I don’t get it… I just don’t get it.”

We were cheering for Giricek to be ditched by the side of the road. Lost with the luggage on some canceled flight and adopted by a JetBlue customer service representative. Addition by subtraction, we said.

In order to explain the Jazz’ two-guard mystery, my brother constructed a theory that really came out of my head, but I’m attributing it to him anyway because I’m too embarrassed to own it. Here goes: Coach Sloan has strange sexual rituals which take place after team practice. Certain players have unwittingly stumbled upon these habits. Then, Sloan feels compelled to play these players at the expense of more talented men at the same position—David Benoit over Bryon Russell being the quintessential example. Under this theory…Gira, having discovered Sloan’s disturbing habits, is given undue playing time to keep quiet.

O’Connor is aware of this situation and realizes he must move Gira for the good of the team. Of course, once removed from the Jazz, Gira could go public with Sloan’s perversions but it would seem like sour grapes at that point and nobody would listen. Wrapped into this theory is David Benoit’s return to the Jazz in 2001-2003, despite the fact he almost destroyed the franchise during his first tenure. Benoit, you see, was in the waning days of his career and needed cash. If not put on the roster, he threatened to go forward with a book entitled, “Rescued by Necrophilia: My Bizarre Tale of Success in the NBA.”

In order to pave the way for a Bryon Russell-like emergence for Brewer, O’Connor was working the phones constantly on February 24. However, you can’t swap “nothing for something”[2] (unless, you are dealing with Billy Knight, see note 1).

Like most UFO sightings, our idea was in response to a situation that simply didn’t make sense. As humans we must impose a rationale, even if it is a false one, onto a disturbing situation. Left without some explanation for cause and effect, a fear of the world’s unpredictable nature creeps in and stultifies our every day living…and we wouldn’t want that.

Whether real or imagined, Giricek thought O’Connor wanted him gone as much as fans really did want him gone. Through the cosmos (as well as the newspapers) Gira could sense it. His neck was in the guillotine and he couldn’t resist constantly looking up, wondering when the blade was going to fall. With all that squirming, not knowing how to confront his indefinite future, he couldn’t concentrate and perform the basic tasks in front of him. He was tortured by the possibility of what a life as a JetBlue baggage hander might have in store for him.

By strange coincidence of fate, Giricek was given another chance. The Governor staved off execution. Freed from his shackles, Gira has made the most of his second chance. It all makes sense now. Gira, man, I completely understand. Who would want to write a book on necrophilia? That would be a distraction. Just keep hitting shots and I promise you’ll never have to say anything, John Amaechi is planning a sequel after all.

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[1] However, O’Connor couldn’t pull this trick because Knight had already given the Jazz more than their fair share of charity. Only a year and a half ago, Knight mixed up two draft prospects named Williams—leading to this conversation with the Hawks’ assistant General Manager, “Wait, you mean ‘Deron’ is the point guard? Are you sure? Well, what position does this ‘Marvin’ kid play? No. You can’t be serious.”

[2] Seriously, what in good god’s name could you have traded for Giricek on his own? In January, you couldn’t have even asked for a signed poster of Ray Allen. You might have been able to haggle a used DVD of “He Got Game.” After much debate Dylan and I concluded exactly what Giricek was worth: one candy bar. …O’Connor could have traded him for a Milky Way, or maybe one of those Hershey’s things with nuts in them that’s named after money.