A New Scout Team Look and Utah Jazz Practice Shorts

Josh Jones has been promoted. As much as it disappoints me to say this and as much as it hurts me physically and emotionally...Josh Jones is no longer part of the Creighton University men's basketball scout team. Josh added many elements to our team. Mainly, an athletic black man, but more importantly, he added comedy at its finest and total oblivion as to what is deemed appropriate and inappropriate to say aloud. Ever since P'Allen's suspension, Josh has seen his minutes go from zero most every game to more than 20. And the thing is, he has more than made the most of his opportunity. Josh has scored at a very effective rate for us and has added a level of confidence and sense of pride and privilege that this team has sorely lacked. Josh's confidence has always been through the roof and that can sometimes be a good thing or a bad thing. Josh couldn't care either way. After all, this is a kid that once told me he thought he could beat Allen Iverson one on one. Yes, THE Allen Iverson. The scout team will sorely miss him.

Despite Josh's bittersweet absence from scout team, we didn't just sit around and hang our heads about the vacant wing absence from our team. We scouted vigorously for a replacement. Actually, not at all. Coach Altman just assigned freshman point guard Andrew Bock to join us for the remainder of the year. This moves Taylor Stormberg from the point guard position to the wing spot, and Andrew has taken over as our point guard. Things have gone swell ever since. I typically get to shoot more since You Know Who has left, and Andrew can typically break the starters' press by himself so I don't really ever have to help bring the ball up the court. My current duties allow me to just catch and shoot, really the only thing I'm good for.

Besides our new scout team, nothing terribly interesting has happened on the Jays homefront. Well, there has been a few things. Now what I'm about to tell you is going to seem so absurd and so ludicrous and so ridiculous, I should expect you to never have any respect for the KLAWSON ever again. Let it be known that I do like Kenny, and I often get a kick out of Kenny, but the man would explode on you if you were to tell him that one sock is about an inch higher on his leg than the other sock. He's like Bob Huggins should Huggins find out that one of his players isn't going to wear a headband for the upcoming game. Bottom line: Kenny freaks out for no apparent and sound reason whatsoever.

Exhibit A: The day before we played Evansville at home, I arrived at the Old Gym about an hour and a half before practice started to lift weights. (It's a hobby of mine.) Seeing as how our mananger, Brian, hadn't yet layed out our practice gear, I scavanged the locker room for any available pair of shorts that I could borrow from someone for the time being. As I glanced inside Kenny's locker, it became apparent that he multiple pairs of shorts. Most of the shorts were much too big for me, a pair of Jordan's even coming dangerously close to my ankles. There was, however, one pair of shorts that fit me particularly well...a nice pair of Adidas Utah Jazz practice shorts. I put on the shorts, went down to the weight room and went about my business. After I finished lifting, I was walking back up to the locker room when I saw Kenny. Kenny about didn't notice that I was wearing his shorts, but at the last possible moment before he went his way and I went mine, he asked if I was wearing his shorts in a tone that, quite frankly, didn't sound like Mother Theresa's.

"Yes Kenny," I said, "I am wearing your shorts." Kenny immediately became flustered and baffled and furious that someone else was wearing his pair of shorts.

"Those are my shorts!" Kenny replied, his blood pressure increasing more rapidly than Stan van Gundy's. "Don't wear my shorts Ross! Don't be going in my locker man, seriously put them back!!" Like I said, Kenny freaks out. I thought that was the end of it. As a matter of fact, I didn't put them back in Kenny's locker. I did him a favor and put them in the laundry basket so Brian could wash them.

The next day, before practice, Kenny asked again where the shorts were. I explained to him that I put the shorts in the laundry basket and that they were either in the laundry basket or in his locker at the Old Gym. (Practice was at the Qwest on this particular day.) Kenny wasn't pleased with this response, so he felt it was his right to tell me that I had to pay him for the shorts should the shorts be lost. That last statement is infuriating on many levels.

First off, the shorts aren't even Kenny's. They're Kaleb's. Why would anyone else on our team have a pair of Utah Jazz practice shorts? Oh yeahhhhh, Kaleb's brother plays for the Utah Jazz. Secondly, Kenny claims that Anthony Tolliver gave him the shorts. Funny he should mention that because, last time I checked, AT has never once been with the Utah Jazz organization, not even for a summer league team. Thirdly, how would they just be lost out of thin air? I put them in the laundry basket, thus Brian knows where they are. He wouldn't just lose the pair of shorts, and on the astronomical chance that Brian would lose the pair of shorts, it would be his responsibility for the shorts, not mine. Fourth, why would I have to pay him for a pair of shorts that a. aren't even his and b. even if they were his, he didn't pay for them, they just happened to be left behind in the locker room one day in the summer? The fact of the matter is, Kenny is absolutely out of his mind to think I would ever pay him for a pair of shorts.

The story doesn't end there. After Kenny's ludicrous statement about me potentially having to pay for the shorts, he bugged the rest of the day about where the shorts were, and to not go through his locker ever again. He promptly asked that I bring the shorts to the Qwest that night before the game. I told him I would. After speaking with Brian though, I realized the shorts were currently in Billy Walsh's possession because Brian thought that that is who the shorts belonged to. I arrived to the Qwest and immediately became bombarded with questions from Kenny as to the whereabouts of the shorts. I explained to him that Billy Walsh had them and he should talk to him about the shorts. You would've thought I bent the bill on Kenny's LA Dodgers fitted hat.

"Alright man, people think they can just go into other people's lockers and steal things from now on!!! I see how it is!!!"

It didn't stop there. He immediately went out onto the floor where Billy Walsh was warming up because, ya know, we have a game in like twenty minutes, and bombarded Billy with questions about the shorts. Billy was baffled as to what Kenny was even talking about. Now Brian is furious with Kenny for worrying about a pair of shorts twenty minutes before our game, and because, well, Kenny should've just asked Brian for the shorts in the first place and we could've avoided this entire debacle.

In any event, the shorts were, in fact, in Billy's locker, and Kenny could stop acting like somebody kidnapped a sibling of his and focus at the task at hand...our basketball game. Unreal. Moral of the story: Don't ever take anything as seriously as Kenny takes seriously a pair of NBA practice shorts. It's much added stress for everybody that isn't needed whatsoever. So next time you're thinking of BORROWING from someone else, think to this story and live by Coach Altman's motto...Simple plays, fellas, simple plays.