It's easy now, looking in arrears, to wonder what in the world Deron Williams and Robert Whaley were thinking when they rearranged the truth a bit during and after their Park City escapade.

Turns out, they didn't instigate a confrontation or bust a beer bottle over anyone's head or lose a knife fight. At least that's the early information, and, based on what I've been told by people at the scene, there may be more yet to come.

This much is certain: They lied.

Remember what Grandma used to say? Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.

On the other hand, Grandma used to also ask whether she looked good in her new Sunday hat, the one that had oversized plastic fruit attached to it and shards of wheat grass projecting in all directions, making her look like she was wearing a fruity redwood bush on her head.

We told her she looked great. Oh no, but it looks good on you. Truth is, we wanted to ask her if she got a free bowl of soup with that horrendous getup.

Somebody else once said a little inaccuracy sometimes saves a lot of explanation.

For the Jazz rookies, it necessitated a lot more.

The most egregious falsehoods had nothing to do with Whaley's concocted description of his 2-year-old son juggling steak knives in the kitchen, wounding him in the web of his right hand. No, the more serious web of lies, from a legal standpoint at least, came immediately after the fracas and consisted of two aliases offered up to police.

Whaley told the cops he was "Bobby Williams."

Williams said he was "Torrey Ellis."

Are you kidding me?

Two conspicuous Jazz players, after being spotted and taunted in a bar by Denver Nuggets fans, passing themselves off to peace officers as Bobby Williams and Torrey Ellis?

This, of course, is the very definition of imbecilic.

You have to wonder why Robert didn't take his misidentification all the way to the limit with, say, Bobby Brown and Deron didn't go with Torrey Pines.

I haven't heard anything this rich since Fletch used his colorful collection of aliases: Ted Nugent, Nostradamus, Victor Hugo, Billie Jean King, Mary Poppins, Harry S. Truman, Dr. Rosenrosen, Don Corleone, Gordon Liddy, John Cocktosten, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Babar. Wasn't Elmer Fudd in there somewhere, too?

If I were Whaley or Williams, I might have gone with Paxy Schultz and Hans Fuddpucker. How about Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones? Butch and Sundance? Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers? Rodgers and Hammerstein? Batman and Robin? Stockton and Malone? Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn? Sonny and Cher? Nick and Jessica?

So many fine choices, and these guys cook up Bobby and Torrey?

What about Ron Mexico?

I can see it already - fans in the Delta Center wearing Jazz jerseys with the names on the back: B. Williams and T. Ellis.

Answering the "what-are-your-names?" question from authorities would have been so much easier, in hindsight, with plain old Robert Whaley and Deron Williams. The truth, looking back, almost always is the best option.

I think Grandma knew that, just the way she suspected that we thought she looked ridiculous in her goofy hat.

There's an old proverb that says: Tell the truth and then run.

Better yet, tell the truth and stay.

Either way, tell the darn truth.

It beats the bejeebers out of lying.

On the other hand, it should come as no surprise that the Jazz themselves may have tossed honesty in the dumper when they told everybody that Williams was missing Monday's game against Detroit, just a day after the Park City episode, on account of an inner-ear infection.

The attending physician, I think, was Dr. Rosenrosen.

gmonson@sltrib.com