Carlos Boozer Cannot Sleep

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.)

The Miss Gossip creation:

Arguably as good as the original.

A personal note of pre-assembled longing from a Kings fan who loves Ronnie Price: Every fan base has its own folk heroes, its unlikely superstars who are not understood by kids outside the city of garbage time glory. Ronnie Price, however slight in statistics, fits that judgment to the serif. Before this dunk, he was already befriended by the entire arena. Energetic, tough, humble. He had a great, goofy sequence with Slamson The Biblical Mascot on our Jumbotron.

This dunk came when Sacramento attitudes were reaching their flaccid worst. The Kings were losing their lead the night before Thanksgiving, watching the streaking Jazz push back into the game. Then, on a busted-ass play (a frequent feature in 06-07 at ARCO), Ronnie comes out of Yuba effing City to destroy All-Star Carlos. The place wouldn't shut up for five minutes, no exaggeration. The Kings went on to lose the game (and many more). Honestly, it's because Shareef went blind on that play. Play with M80s, get burnt.

The dunk became a microbe of Sacramento's greater ecology (as so many similar plays across the world do): brief brilliance on to the way to expansive malaise. But Price never fell into the malaise, while even other local cult stars did. Ronnie kept on banging, til a ridiculous block attempt on a fast break left him bloodied and beaten, and cinched his Sactown exit.

Now? Our pleasure will come in watching Ronnie Price beat Jason Hart's ass for minutes. Again. Long live Ronnie, here and there and everywhere.