In defense of Mehmet Okur

One of the most common complaints about recent Jazz teams is the lack of a shot-blocking center.

Fans want a big man who can make up for Williams, Brewer and Kirilenko's inability to guard anyone. They want Dwight Howard.

But they know that Boozer's buddy Superman isn't going to be coming to the SLC anytime soon. So, fans have accepted that all they need is longer center who can block shots and help the defense. Nothing special, just a player to make it more difficult for opponents to score.

Listen to that. They want Greg Ostertag.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Yes. You want a huge presence in the middle. Someone who can block shots. Or at least disrupt drives to the basket. The player doesn't even need to score that much.

Ostertag says: I did all of that. For 10 season. But you all wanted a center who could score from the outside. An offensive presence. Remember Todd Fuller?

The center position in the NBA today isn't very good. How many 5-men are, without any doubt, better than Okur? PFs who play a little bit of center don't count (Garnett, Duncan).
-Howard
-Al Jefferson
-Brook Lopez
-Chris Kaman
-Andrew Bogut
-Marc Gasol

After that, there are a bunch of maybes. Shaquille O'Neal, Andris Biedrins,
Andrew Bynum, Emeka Okafor and Spencer Hawes.

These days it would be hard to find even a Greg Ostertag. And there aren't many options coming up in the draft. The best bet is Greg Monroe from Georgetown.

It would be really nice to have a shot-blocker, but the Jazz have a better chance of learning how to guard people with what they have.

Dunk of the Year----->Sloan Hands

This is probably Williams' best dunk. He can now stop dunking. Please stop dunking, D-Will.

Also, big (er, huge) high five to my friend Kendo's blog, Sloan Hands, which got linked by Bill Simmons on Twitter yesterday.

You're better than this, Gilbert Arenas

The nerds are mad at you, Agent Zero.

"Arenas is a friend of rapper The Game and was listed in the booklet for The Game's second album The Doctor's Advocate. He collects a synthetic basketball from each team played, as well as players' jerseys, of which he has more than 200, most of which are autographed.[24] Arenas is an avid Halo player—his Gamertag is Agent Arenas—and officially sponsors Team Final Boss, a professional Halo 3 team.[25][26] However, to the chagrin of many gamers, he exploits a glitch in Xbox Live to cheat, artificially boosting his Halo 3 rank through dummy accounts."


The Jazz need to find such a glitch for not being so weak on the road.

Dunk o' the Year Contender

in which Deron Williams sends Tony Parker crying all the way back to Wisteria Lane.