FanHouse RonniePrice

The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Tom Ziller.

Depending on your interior biases, the Utah Jazz either represent a flimsy facade waiting to be knocked over or the last gasp of insurgent power willing to make the Western Conference playoffs compelling.

As always, the truth falls somewhere in the middle. The public consensus, however, has cast Utah as more bit player than force to be reckoned with. But mis-measuring the Jazz as a Western also-ran is a huge mistake.

Knock on wood, but this preseason has actually been rather mild in terms of star injuries. Jazz point guard Deron Williams, though, went down Saturday in a match in Chicago with an ankle sprain. How bad was it?

The last thing Jazz fans would have wanted to see was Deron Williams being carried off the court and wheeled into the locker room.

Not good, Utah. Not good. Ronnie Price is the back-up, and he is able in that role. But a team with designs on the Finals shouldn't be comfortable rolling without its talisman, and the Jazz are no doubt worried about this blow. Williams used crutches to get to the team bus, but snubbed reporters, earning the ire of Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Who Williams didn't talk to were the two Jazz beat writers, two guys who have driven across Illinois the past two days on a three-game preseason trip that has felt more like five. Two guys who, for better or worse, are supposed to be the public's conduit to the team. ...

I assume Williams is either scared about his ankle or wants to wait until Monday, when he knows definitively about how much time he will miss. But by blowing off the beat writers, all Williams did was generate more speculation about how hurt he is.

Siler goes on to mention some of the worst sprains from season's past, and intimates that if the injury is serious Utah could be without its star for a month. A salient worry, sure, but unnecessary hyperbole at this point. Siler does have a point -- what's there to do but guess if the team won't talk -- but playing the guessing game does no favors for the media nor the fans.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. FreeDarko: Why Deron WIlliams has it in for Chris Paul.

2. Third Quarter Collapse: Looks like the ref got cold feet on the final play of the Pistons-Magic Game 4.

3. Alan Hahn, Newsday: Did the Knicks hire Mike D'Antoni to entice LeBron James?

4. Ross Siler, Salt Lake Tribune: Ronnie Price doesn't think Ronny Turiaf should be suspended.

5. Hardwood Paroxysm: "I never noticed the Maginot line had rims on it."

6. The Hype Guy: A singing Shaq comes to Will Ferrell's rescue.

There's no question that this foul (at about the :35 mark) from the Lakers' Ronny Turiaf was a little harder than necessary, and to put a stop to excessively physical play, the referees felt the need to call it a flagrant. I understand that. But just because Ronnie Price landed awkwardly and gashed his head on the hardwood doesn't mean that the foul was more intentional or violent, yet because of the blood, the officials called Turiaf for a flagrant-two and ejected him from the game.

Looked like your run-of-the-mill flagrant-one to me, and in no way did that deserve an ejection. Now, is it that big a deal in the grand scheme of things that Turiaf was unavailable for most of the game? Probably not, although there was a stretch to start the fourth quarter where DJ Mbenga was in there as part of a lineup that allowed the Jazz to quickly push their lead back up to 10.

The officials are allowed to review flagrant fouls right there on the monitors to determine the extent and the severity of the foul before tossing a player. I think it's clear that Turiaf wasn't intentionally trying to take out a seldom-used role player like Ronnie Price, and had the officials taken a closer look, I think they could have easily seen that and allowed Turiaf to remain in the game.

We break up important, consequential reportage to give you this trinket of probable irrelevance: Utah signed ex-King Ronnie Price to a multi-year deal, says the Salt Lake Tribune's Steve Luhm. Why does it matter?



Every day in practice, Carlos. Every day.

(After the jump, an alternate interpretation from Miss Gossip, and some heartfelt words of want from a dear Ronnie Price fan.)