Some off-days, I can’t believe my ears

** Randy Rigby on Gregg Popovich resting Duncan/Parker/Ginobili against the Jazz:

It bothers me as well. I enjoyed Phil [Johnson]’s comments [that Pop resting the Big 3 was the “height of arrogance” and a “travesty”] and I appreciate him having an opinion to that degree.

I started thinking about it and I’ve wrestled whether to say something to the commissioner. When NBA players do not go and play in an All-Star game or do certain things for an All-Star game, there were actually fines that went out. But they were not doing it because they wanted to rest, and…that same principle is applying right here as well, that people paid out serious money to come and watch the very highest level of competition…and when that doesn’t happen, to me it’s not the style of philosophy that the Utah Jazz have in how we approach each and every game.

Rigby was then asked whether he’d heard from “upset, frustrated fans that bought tickets to the game.”

I was surprised that on this occasion, we did not hear from some of the fans, because I thought maybe we would…[the win] kept our Playoff hopes alive, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise to us. But I was surprised that I did not receive any emails from our fan base expressing their disappointment of what took place.

KFAN: I think you didn’t hear from anybody because they knew this team needed to win ballgames to get into the Playoffs. There were a lot of Jazz fans glad those guys didn’t make the trip.

Rigby: We were commenting in the locker room [after the game]…hey, keep in mind here you have Stephen Jackson that’s on this team–a very good player that they were able to pick up. There’s no slouch there with him being on the team. Mills, a very legitimate, solid player that they were able to pick up. From an NBA talent level, there wasn’t a lot of slighting even though the Big 3 didn’t show up. There was still some very good NBA talent on the floor for the San Antonio Spurs, and that’s what made them to be the contender that they are in the west right now. (2)

How many 180s were there in that conversation? I lost count. Also, I can’t believe Jazz employees are still making a big deal out of this. It wasn’t enough that they had to go around asking every Jazz player after that game whether it was a show of disrespect/slap in the face. It wasn’t enough to discuss it in the post-game and on sports radio. Now we need to have team executives saying they want to complain to David Stern about it. I honestly did not see anything wrong with Pop doing what he did.

** Randy Rigby on the city of Seattle:

Unfortunately, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. I think Seattle people are realizing, you know what? We are a good mix for NBA basketball, and it’s a shame we let that team go. So hopefully they’ve learned a lesson. (2)

Not that I paid a super amount of attention to the Sonics’ move to Oklahoma City, but I think that in the eyes of Sonics fans, this is not what happened. I know the city wouldn’t pay for a new arena, but to say that the fans let the team go and that hopefully they learned a lesson…

Oh and by the way, Rigby also mentioned that Greg Miller is on the NBA’s relocation committee.

** Phil Johnson on Gordon Hayward (H/T modernagejazz for the tip):

We had some guys, actually some players that were here when we drafted him, that are now gone, that didn’t think he was going to be a real good player. He’s got a good attitude. He’s a good person, and those kids are the ones you’d like to see succeed. (4)

Jazzmen on our roster last year that aren’t here this year:

Andrei Kirilenko, Mehmet Okur, Francisco Elson, Kyrylo Fesenko, Ronnie Price, Kyle Weaver, Marcus Cousin, and Deron Williams.

Gee, I wonder who it was.

** Kevin O’Connor on the young guys:

We’ve all played JV basketball. When you went up to varsity for the first time…you were a little scared. You haven’t figured out how to play yet. You’re nervous about it. That’s what I hope happens with these guys. They’ve got to earn it. They’ve got to know if they go in the game and don’t play well and don’t play hard, play hard more than anything, then it becomes a situation where you understand what’s coming and you’re not gonna get in the game. (4)

KOC goes on to say that if a young guy puts up good numbers in a loss, he will believe he did his part and doesn’t learn to win.

Burks and Kanter don’t strike me as guys who are scared. I heard both of them saying they are not scared when they arrived in Utah. But now if they don’t play well and know that that will result in them getting yanked, yes, that probably makes them scared where they weren’t scared before.

(2) KFAN
(4) LOJ