Comedian and comedy theater founder Chris Trew is a New Orleans Pelicans superfan who has a single season ticket directly behind the visitors’ bench inside New Orleans’ Smoothie King Center, where he interacts with the opposing team’s players and coaches. He will be documenting his experiences here for us in a regular column called, Behind the Bench. You can follow his in-game interactions live on Twitter at @Trew2theGame. The Pelicans’ opponent in this column: the Utah Jazz.
— The Utah Jazz are optimistically battling for a playoff spot and are mostly all business. This is probably Gordon Hayward’s team (his teammates call him “G,” a nickname that makes sense, but also doesn’t make any sense) even though he mostly keeps to himself on the bench. Derrick Favors sweats a lot and puts the most effort into being a vocal team leader. The rest of the squad is just kind of there, nobody really taking the role as the guy, a problem I imagine will plague the team until someone steps up.
— The award for “Coaching Staff Most Resembling a Frozen Statue” goes to the Utah Jazz in a landslide vote. The coaching staff rankings for 2016 look something like this: 1. Denver Nuggets, 2. Los Angeles Clippers, second-to-last Portland Trail Blazers, last by a long shot Utah Jazz. It’s not that these guys were just really tuned in to the game. I believe head coach Quin Snyder has trained his staff to ignore everything besides himself and his players through some intense scare tactics. Not the TV show Scare Tactics, I mean actual scare tactics. Though I would cancel all plans this weekend to binge watch Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder forcing his assistants to binge watch the TV show Scare Tactics.
— The coach closest to me was Jeff Watkinson. Now, first and foremost I’m a basketball fan and have an undying interest in the lives and personalities of the professionals. I’m not coming out of the gate verbally ripping a team apart unless there’s history or the stakes are high (not often in New Orleans). Typically there’s an attempt at engagement via local restaurant recommendations. After a first quarter of nothing terribly notable happening anywhere in the Smoothie King Center, I asked Mr. Watkinson how popular Rudy Gobert was in Utah. A solid question, I figured, as the guy isn’t exactly a superstar and he kind of came out of nowhere. Watkinson froze up as a dead stare glazed over his eyes. Even the usher sitting next to him was surprised. I am not unreasonable, so I asked again, thinking perhaps he didn’t hear me. Nothing but darkness in the coach’s soul. He was not here to make friends. He was here to be a basketball robot and refuse all human interactions for four quarters until he made it back to the chamber tomb where the Jazz store him.
— During a timeout, a Pelicans fan nearly hit a half-court shot for $10,000 which distracted the Utah huddle so much the players were reprimanded by Snyder. As he was drawing up something for the offense, the players were glued to the big screen. This is probably not a good sign for the Utah Jazz and their “pay no attention to anything else ever” mindset.
— The question of the game tonight was “What’s wrong?” just said as regular as possible whenever a player made eye contact with me. I didn’t get any answers, but backup center Jeff Withey did turn around once. He said nothing with his mouth, but his facial expression said it all. “Everything.”
— The smiliest guy on Utah’s staff was their head of security who was more than happy to engage me in conversation. Unfortunately, his answer to my question of, “What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever had to do during a game this season?” was the most Salt Lake City answer of all time. He smiled (again) and said, “Nothing.”
— A personal highlight was catching Joe Ingles picking his nose and then putting his finger in his mouth. Unsure if he made contact with a booger or not, but that didn’t stop the woman sitting next to me from loudly exclaiming “number two is eating his boogers” to anyone who would listen. I overheard her talking to some friends at halftime about the incident, and at a season ticket holders event the next day, she brought it up again. I didn’t think I was interested in joining her mission to spread the rumor that Joe Ingles eats his boogers, but here I am with a paragraph’s worth of grade school gossip. Sorry, Joe Ingles.
