SLC Dunk

  I don't know if you can overstate the impact the Wesley Matthews has had on the team.  He's shooting 56% in march including 60% from three and shooting 90% from the free throw line.  Overall he's shooting 48.5% from the field, 39% from the arc, and 80% on free throws.

It makes me wonder where he would be right now had we not had the injuries early in the season to Miles and Korver.  He likely wouldn't have been signed given the luxury tax situation.  So would he have gone to the DLeague?  Would he be on another team right now while we were lamenting how well he was playing?

 The latest NBA Jam trailer (ht BDL).  Deron and Boozer make an appearance at about the :35 mark.  Breakin' ankles.  Also, was there any other game that had more cheat codes than the original NBA Jam?

  Because you can never have too many brackets, here's Deron's group that he's created on ESPN.com.  Though, if it's his group, shouldn't he have an entry?  Right now there's only 13.  

I also created a group just for SLC Dunkers right here.  So join both.

  So my math was a little off yesterday.  It should have read that the Jazz only have 16 games left, not 18.  After last night, it's now 15.  The Nuggets also have 15 left after last night's loss to the Rockets.  So sitting just two games back, the Jazz would need to go 13-2 and the Nuggets to finish 10-4.  I still don't think it's likely that we overtake them, but Denver's loss last night gives me a little false hope.

  A plea from Deron to start playing on Sundays?

It’s been tough on us, but that’s part of the 82-game season. If we start playing on Sundays, we might be able to get a couple games spread out.

We all know why the Jazz don't play games at home on Sunday and that's because of the owner's LDS beliefs.  When they request days off with the league before the schedule is made, the Jazz always request Sundays off.

This year, they only have three games on a Sunday and ofcourse they're all away games. The other argument is that since there's a majority of LDS people in Utah, that having Sunday games wouldn't be profitable for the Jazz as they're not as likely to sell seats to those games outside of season ticket sales. That might still be the case.

Without getting too much into religion, just because there's still a majority of LDS members in the market doesn't necessarily mean that they're all actively practicing LDS. And let's face it, even the active LDS members are watching basketball/football/baseball on Sundays. In addition, the percentage of LDS people in the state is dropping. Also, I believe that in Salt Lake County, or at least in Salt Lake City, there's even less of a majority, if there's one at all. So there's probably a good chance that the Jazz are still going to be able to sell tickets to a few Sunday games. It can't be any worse than a Monday night game against a team like the Wizards.

Maybe another thing to consider is that none of the Jazz players are LDS. None of this is to say that you have to be LDS to consider Sunday a sacred day. I'm guessing though that playing on Sundays isn't a big deal for them. Maybe Deron could buy the remaining tickets that aren't sold for Sunday games and give them to charity?

Religous implications aside, does it help the Jazz to play some Sunday games at home? If the team could guarantee to be profitable on Sunday home games, would they do it? What would be the potential backlash? Would they lose sponsors and advertisers? Those might be some of the biggest reasons that they don't do Sunday games.

I took a random sampling of other teams to see how many Sunday games they play.

Team, # Sunday Games, Home Game, Away Games
Spurs, 11, 4, 7
Bucks, 5, 3, 2
Jazz, 3, 0, 3
Hawks, 7, 4, 3
Raptors, 19, 15, 4 (heathens!)
Lakers, 16, 12, 4
Bobcats, 4, 1, 3
Hornets, 10, 2, 8

The big teams like LA, Boston, Orlando, and Cleveland are going to have a lot of Sunday games given that they're almost always on ABC. Toronto surprised me with the number of games they play on Sunday. The Bobcats are almost like the Jazz, they have just one game at home on Sunday. Maybe because they're in the Bible belt?

So is there an advantage to playing some games at home on Sunday? Maybe a bit. I would like to see some statitician work out some numbers on it. I might do it later if I have some time. This portion of the downbeat went on for a lot longer than I thought it would. I hope this leads to a good discussion.

Ultimately, the decision is going to be the Millers'. I'm not advocating either way, but if they want to have no home Sunday games, that's fine. On the other hand, when you get into a business such as the NBA, Sundays kind of come with the territory. If having a couple of Sundays games would help the players like Deron mentioned, you might have to consider.

So here's a poll, should the Jazz have some home games on Sunday?