Form the best mailbag on the planet(which I am a member of) ,here you go?

“Q: If soccer was king in the U.S. and every kid grew up playing it, which current athlete would be the best soccer player?
–Szabi, Far Hills

SG: My old answer for this question was Allen Iverson. He’s washed up now, but the reasons I always thought he would thrive on a soccer field still hold up: lower center of gravity, explosive speed, phenomenal coordination, leaping ability and a feistiness/toughness/arrogance that every great soccer player has. (FYI: The world’s two best players right now are 5-foot-7 Lionel Messi and 5-10 Wayne Rooney.) Can you think of any American athlete exactly like those guys? Me neither. These three would be the most interesting, though:

Deron Williams: Six-foot-3, great footwork, explosive, physical, strong, thinks like a playmaker. He’d be an unbelievable stopper in an alternate universe.

Bill Simmons speaking about the NBA crowds.

“(I tweeted that the whole situation reminded me of Chris Rock’s old joke, “I haven’t seen white people that mad since they cancelled ‘M.A.S.H.”) Only Portland fans and Utah fans can make a casual observer feel like the officials are in actual danger. That’s a good thing. In the old days, every crowd did that…

(Best NBA crowd rankings for 2009-10: 1. Portland; 2. Utah; 3. Golden State; 4. New York … then a big dropoff to the next group of cities. Biggest dropoff: Boston, a team that won 50 games but had a better road record than home record. In the defense of Boston fans, they spent the first half of the season waiting for KG to stop limping, then the second half arguing about who should charge the court, pull a Shane Stant on Rasheed and serve the mandatory prison sentence. They were distracted.)

I know “Deron Williams or Chris Paul?” is a legitimate debate

A big concession from the guy who once wrote that Williams was the Stone Temple Pilots to Paul’s Pearl Jam. But Paul’s knee injury combined with another stellar Williams season … I mean, if you were picking one of them for the next 12 years, and your life depended on it, which one would you pick? Doesn’t Williams seem like a safer bet to stay healthy and have Kidd-like longevity? Why does Paul’s missing meniscus worry me so much? (Same for you, Brandon Roy. You already had bad knees.) In February’s trade value column, I ranked Williams 10th, Derrick Rose 9th, Roy 8th and Rose 7th. Now? I think I’d go Roy 10th, then Paul, then Williams, then Rose (who’s been playing out of his mind lately). Either way, R.I.P. for the Stone Temple Pilots joke. And for Paul’s sake, let’s hope this didn’t turn into The Police (Paul) and U2 (Williams).

(Important note: If Utah makes another Conference Finals this year, the debate swings in Williams’ favor. I think it could have happened had Utah not lost the quietly rejuvenated Andrei Kirilenko down the stretch, which ended up costing them a No. 2-seed. Where does a Kirilenko injury swinging a conference finals prediction rank among the craziest things that happened this season? Above or below Kenyon Martin threatening everyone in Denver’s locker room because JR Smith’s chauffeur filled his Range Rover with buttered popcorn as an April Fool’s prank? I swear to God, man, when I find out who did this, I’m gonna put my mothaf—in’ hands on y’all! You’re right, K-Mart was higher.)

I love Bill Simmons. So much in fact, I want him to be my second wife if they bring polygamy back. Anyway, here are some other situations that the Utah Jazz could be in.

Q: Is there any downside to the Knicks signing any former college player with the last name “James,” giving him No. 23 and selling out the Garden with $5 tickets and giveaways? Wouldn’t the entire stadium not immediately purchase the 23 “James” jersey at the gate? Could LeBron possibly watch this game with the Garden going completely bananas all wearing No. 23 James jerseys and not think, I have to move to New York? He already has a 100-foot billboard outside the Garden. Is there any other equivalent of this in sports marketing? If the Sox became the worst team in the AL East, would you be OK with Jeter or CC posters outside Fenway? That’s how low the Knicks are as a franchise. I just walk by the Garden every day and smile at the LeBron poster.
– Mike, New York

SG: I get e-mails like this all the time. Knicks fans have lost their minds. Attending Monday night’s Hawks-Knicks game in person, I was stunned by the devotion of the MSG crowd; they cheered like a playoff spot was at stake. If the Knicks were smart, they would be mailing LeBron’s crew these game DVDs with anonymous notes like, “Check out our crowd — we made this much noise on a Monday night when we were 20 games under .500. Imagine what would happen if you were here?” You know what’s really incredible? The Knicks have sold nearly 2,000 more season tickets for the 2010-11 season with what’s really turning into the greatest “Illusion of Regret” sales campaign ever. So why not sign a random “James” and give him No. 23 for a few weeks? Might as well.

Q: In his recent letter to season-ticket holders enticing us to renew or upgrade our Wolves 2010-2011 tickets for up to 50 percent off, your nemesis David Kahn gives reasons the team is heading in the right direction, including that the team has built “a coaching staff that has collected 15 championship rings.” At first I thought, “Wow, that’s impressive.” Then I started thinking: OK, I get that Kurt Rambis has four rings as a player and two as an assistant coach and that Bill Laimbeer has two as a player. But where did Dave Wohl, Reggie Theus and J.B. Bickerstaff collect seven more championship rings? Then a knot grew in my stomach as I thought, “No! He wouldn’t! He couldn’t!” I looked up the coaching bios and found that Dave Wohl was an assistant coach on a Lakers championship team, which I guess is legit. However, as best as I can tell the other six championships include Wohl’s two Ivy League titles as a player at Penn almost 40 years ago, Theus’ WAC tournament title as a coach at New Mexico State, and — yes, my worst fears were realized — Laimbeer’s three championships as coach of the WNBA Detroit Shock! Now I feel even more slimy with Kahn as my team’s GM. He makes me want to scream, William Shatner-like, “Kahn!!! Kahn!!!”
– Pete, St., Louis Park, Minn.

SG: Look on the bright side: You get to wait another two-plus years for someone shooting 30 percent in a Euro league right now.

The Utah Jazz are wearing Green tonight which so far this season has been a good sign that they will win the game.

I attended the last game that these two played and all I can remember is the fourth quarter steal that Chris Paul had when he was on the short end of a 3 on 1 break. He then took the ball to the other end of the floor and hit a huge shot to put the game away.

Obviously Chris Paul will not be playing tonight and could be out for the rest of the season. Bill Simmons talks about the down scaling of certain injuries in his latest post and alludes that Chris Paul is in this category.

My least favorite trend of the No Benjamins Association era: teams twisting the truth about potentially serious injuries so they don’t hurt ticket sales, or because they know the media won’t challenge their stories and call them out afterward. After seeing Boston string Celtics fans along with KG’s bum knee and the Clippers legitimately lie about Blake Griffin’s knee injury, when I heard the Hornets claim CP3 would miss only “four to six weeks” after “minor” knee surgery, my BS Detector started beeping. Especially since we learned that doctors removed Paul’s torn meniscus ligament rather than repairing it.Intrigued, I asked Will Carroll (the injury expert for Baseball Prospectus and Basketball Prospectus) for his thoughts. Will pointed me toward a piece he wrote about meniscus removal a few years ago. The key section: “One reason teams are so quick to allow this surgery is that the players come back so quickly, usually in a matter of weeks. But … surgeons don’t repair the meniscus in most cases; they just take it out, either in part or in whole depending on the size of the tearing. That leaves the athlete with no shock. Eventually, with the remaining meniscus overstressed and aging, they end up with the bones grinding together. Yes, that’s as bad as it sounds in a game of running and jumping.”

(Hold on, we have to wait for the Hornets fans to clear out that puke from their mouths. Waiting … waiting … OK, we’re good.)

Every Year we have  a the same discussion about whether or not you take Chris Paul or Deron Williams if you are the Utah Jazz ( in a side note you slit your wrists if you are an Atlanta Hawks Fan. One of the biggest problems I have with little guards is- durability. We have really only seen a couple of small guards stay in the Nba for a long productive career–/Allen Iverson And Isaiah Thomas are the two that come to mind. With today’s medical advancements Paul should be fine and continue to have a great career but every injury shortens his career a little bit especially when it has to do with knees, ankles and backs.

The Jazz are trying to their first back to back road games since FEB of 08 imagine that, two years since we have won both ends of  back to back road games.

Deron Williams should have a spectacular night tonight, exactly I just dropped spectacular. The Jazz are wearing their green Jerseys tonight and we know what that does to them.

AK has been on fire if you haven’t noticed and since being put in the starting lineup is putting up these numbers 15.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists and is shooting .632 from the field.

Millsap is averaging  18.3 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 3 assist per contest.

Mehmet Okur It seems that Jerry Sloan,Memo, and Millsap all understand that it is better for the Jazz to have Millsap on the floor during crunch time.They talked about this on the radio this morning. It may hurt an American player more than it effects Memo. He has a championship ring is getting 10 million a year and is about to have a baby, realistically I’m sure with the playing time he is or isn’t getting. As a Jazz fan we should be happy with an outburst from Memo every once in a while but not count on him every getting back to the 2009 Memo maybe just flashes every once in a while.

Biggest Key to the game- Rebounds we have to do a better job on the boards tonight than we did last night.

Here are some extended stat break downs of tonight’s game.

Preview | GameTrax | Depth Chart | Head-to-Head

Jazz	Key Team Stats	Hornets
102.2	Points scored	100.0
97.5	Points allowed	101.2
.492	FG% own	.456
.449	FG% opposition	.473
.349	3PT% own	.363
.351	3PT% opposition	.364
513	Offensive Rebounds	551
1605	Defensive Rebounds	1601
2118	Total Rebounds	2152
1.8	Assist/Turnover Ratio	1.8
22.0	Fouls Per Game	19.8

If you are scoreboard watching tonight here are some good games to watch.

Bulls @ Knicks in the second game of a home and home.

Suns @ MAvericks on Espn and a look at the New Mavs Players.

Stat of the Day- The Utah Jazz are the only team in the league to have wins over the Lakers, Cavs, Magic, Mavericks, and Spurs.

My Prediction for tonight’s game is Utah Jazz 106 New Orleans Hornets 94

From Bill Simmons Mailbag

Q: Did you see the Heat-Pistons game on Sunday, March 22? I know the announcers were carrying their orders from the league office to praise Wade at every opportunity, but in the last minute, Wade fell down on a touch foul after getting touched on his foot (got the whistle), then blocked two shots where he mauled the Pistons with way more contact (no calls). Are the refs warming up for the playoffs or what?
– Sam G., Ann Arbor, Mich.

SG: Here’s what ticks me off: As the Miami Salvatores were whistling their way to the 2006 title, you might remember me writing a column that started, “Forget about who’s winning the championship. I’m starting to feel like the future of the NBA is at stake.” I warned everyone that a Miami victory meant we could “look forward to another decade of perimeter scorers going 11-for-32 in big games, teammates standing around while stars dribble at the top of the key waiting to challenge two defenders at once, and refs deciding every big game (like in Game 5) by how they interpret contact when the same guy is recklessly driving to the basket over and over again.” I also wrote, “seeing an individual triumph over a team YET AGAIN would erase every positive outcome from the 2005-06 season. Basically, the team with LeBron or Wade will win the next 10-12 titles, and it will come down to which guy made more 20-footers with two guys on him and which guy got the most cheap calls from the most spineless referees. That’s not basketball, it’s a star system.”

Flash-forward to 2009: With the post-Donaghy hangover gone, we’re back to that star system again. Kobe, LeBron and Wade are officiated differently than everyone else. And you know what else? They know it. Watch LeBron at the end of games now — he barrels toward the basket, bounces off guys and knows he’ll get a call. Here’s the shame of it: LeBron, Wade and Kobe are playing at the highest level of any three stars since Jordan, Barkley and Hakeem in 1993. They would be great with or without the help. I don’t blame them — they play hard every night and do whatever it takes to win. But if you don’t think we’re headed for a Kobe-LeBron Finals, you’re insane. As your gambling accountant, I suggest you investigate those 6-to-5 odds on a Cavs-Lakers Finals. And no, this isn’t a reverse jinx. Just watch what happens.

Breaking News.

Karl Malone, John Stockton, David Stern, and many others should be at the game tonight. We love you Larry.

SSHHHHHHHH! don’t tell anyone I can’t play anymore. It seems as though Bobby Jackson has been in the league since the merger. Udrih is hurt, so Bobby will get the nod.

I guarantee a win tonight. There is no possible way that Utah Jazz lose this game.

First, this game could be called the second Larry Miller game. The Jazz will play the kings following the funeral of the late Larry Miller. Emotions will be very very intense.

Second, the Kings are horrible on the road. They have the second worst road record in the league at 4-27 and they only have one player that could hurt us (Kevin Martin).

Third, the crowd should be pretty rowdy and full since the game is on a Saturday night. When the Jazz win it will be the first time in twelve years that the Utah Jazz have swept the season series.

Fourth, the Kings are the worst rebounding team in the league. The Jazz should out rebound them by at least 20 rebounds I say somewhere around 51 31 total rebounds.

Predictions-

Utah Jazz win 113-89

If gambling were legal I would still take the 17 points the Jazz are giving. Unbelievable.

Other stuff-

Bill Simmons backs me up on the salary cap issues (he has the inside scoop, it is here).

Thank you Milwaukee, TTTSNBN, and most of all, thank you to the Los Angeles Lakers for laying over and dying last night.

Milwaukee had the Hornets on the Ropes and gave up a last second tip in.

TTTSNBN gave up a five point lead to Dallas with about 30 seconds left.

The Lakers pulled a Nuggets think (Playoffs 2008) and didn’t show up. The Lakers shot 29.8% from the floor including 9.5% from three, yes 9.5%. Thank you for losing the gimme. Reason #43 why I hate the Los Angeles Lakers.

President Obama attended the Chicago Bulls Game last night in DC.

What if NBA Coaches were given two technicals fouls to call on/give Refs, here is the result.