Obsessive and Deprived in Salt Lake: Sloan’s insanity cheats fanzz of historic showdown with Warriors

I felt like I had written the script to Game 5…Despite it all, Kirilenko perseveres and puts forth a remarkable comeback campaign. Near the end of the fourth, AK throws a jaw-dropping pass to Boozer for an easy lay in. Only he and Magic could have pulled it off. When it leaves his hands you think, “Oh my god! No. No. NO.” Then you realize all along he knew what he was doing and your expression of horror turns to jubilation.

The bucket brings the Jazz within one point. Rather than stick with Kirilenko who is obviously hot, Sloan calls a play for his counterpart Harpring. BRICK. The next possession, coach Sloan takes AK out in favor of Derek Fisher. The Fishbot immediately comes barreling down the floor committing an obvious offensive foul. Turn over. Game over.

The off-season should be here by week’s end. Kevin O’Connor’s most difficult task this summer will be temporarily relocating the Jazz practice facility and headquarters. Sloan must be kept at a safe distance, until someone can fill out the paperwork for a restraining order.

Once that is finished, O’Connor faces some rough personnel choices. Boozer, AK, and Okur simply cannot coexist. This is okay. Really, it is. . .Boozer’s trade value is higher than it will ever be. Maybe O’Connor could swindle the number one pick from the Celts. Durant would look pretty incredible on the Jazz bench playing behind Fisher…if Danny Ainge actually wants to keep his job, there are many other options. I can’t tell you how many times I put Boozer for Ray Allen and Mohamed Sene[1] into the trade machine last February.

Kevin, why can’t the future Jazz starting line-up look like this: Williams, Brewer, AK, Millsap, Okur? What would be wrong with that? Please tell me why that wouldn’t work? All of them are good, or at least solid, defenders. All could provide 14 – 18 points a game, none of them are selfish, and all play well together. Further, they are all athletes who can play multiple positions. This is the obvious future of NBA basketball. If you don’t accept where history is moving, it will leave you behind.

In the long run, the Jazz need a slow low-post scorer like Boozer about as much as they need the cylon twins. Am I the only one who notices how much better the team fairs when Millsap is on the floor?

Millsap and AK are cut from the same unconventional cloth. Neither fits the bill of a classic forward at either the four or three spot, but both are great teammates who do all the little things that actually win ball games. Mike D’Antoni found a way to fit four unconventional athletes into a regular rotation where each average at least 31 minutes a night (Stoudemire, Marion, Diaw, and Barbosa). Why can’t the Jazz do the same with AK, Millsap, and Brewer?

Millsap, who I am today dubbing “the Perfect Soldier,”[2] is a cross between Denis Rodman and Horace Grant. He’ll never be the scorer that Boozer is, but the Jazz don’t need him to be!. . . Williams can score, Brewer could score if ever he didn’t know about Sloan’s secret, Okur can score, and AK does score if allowed to slash to the hoop, or play in the post. . .Kirilenko is not going to put up points at small forward. Why? Because the position does not provide any favorable mismatches. (If AK plays the two spot, he posts up smaller defenders. At the four spot, he’s too quick and he’ll take you off the dribble. Where as at small forward, he stands ignored at the 3 point line until his mind wanders from the game to the plot of the latest Russian pop novel.)

Smart teams figure out a way to put their best basketball players on the floor in a way that suits there unique talents. Preferably, players who can perform at both ends of the court. I’m not fooled by all the steals Boozer has been racking up, and neither should you. C-Bozz LLC could not block a shot if it was teed up for him. This a problem when paired next to Okur who roams the key like Mark Eaton drove to the hoop.[3]

There is no doubt Boozer is talented. Twelve years ago, he would have been a power forward for the ages. But that was twelve years ago, this is the age where Don Nelson looks like a genius. Nontraditional is soon to become traditional. Funny how that works.

You can call Nellie a gimmick coach if you want, but his up tempo, breakneck, mismatch style is no more of a gimmick than Sloan’s hard-nosed, slow-it-down, break-your-neck ploy. The difference being, Nellie's gimmick appears to be working.

It’s too bad we’ll be deprived of a Pepsi challenge of “Gimmick A” versus “Gimmick B.” It would be most entertaining. The two best crowds in the NBA competing for lunatic supremacy? Who wouldn’t want to see that. Also, the series would provide the most intriguing point guard match up since Magic versus Stockton, or Magic versus Isiah. Both Williams and Davis are big strong modern floor generals. Davis is the established veteran and Williams is the up-and-coming future. There would be more drama there than any series since the 1998 finals.

I will never forgive Sloan for allowing his love affair with mechanical impostors to prevent this match up from taking place.

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[1] Sene is needed to make the salaries match up. There is decent chance he could useful as well. I saw him play in the Rocky Mountain Revue and he may never have much offense, but he is a shot blocker that could be a good Ying to Okur’s Yang.. .Don’t go too far with that concept.

[2] When Sloan was recently asked what he likes most about Millsap, he said “When you ask him to do something, he never asks ‘why.’ ” In journalism, this is what is called, "The telling detail."

[3] However, Okur’s one-on-one defense against Yao has been as good as you could possibly hope for.