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Jazz melody starts to fade
By Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated
The same could be said for the Utah Jazz. To the untrained eye, the franchise makes little sense. For years now, the team has needed to infuse its fossilized roster with athleticism and a splash of youth. Never was that more apparent than last season, when Utah lost in the first round of the playoffs to upstart Dallas, dropping Game 5 at the Delta Center. So what was the team's big offseason move? Signing bulky center John Amaechi, who turns 31 the first month of the upcoming season. Still, like jazz, there is something soulful and unmistakably appealing about the Jazz. Perhaps it's that in a league where teams change personnel as often as most people change their socks, the franchise is the benchmark for stability. Coach Jerry Sloan is beginning his 14th season with team, the longest tenure in the NBA. Stalwarts Karl Malone and John Stockton are commencing their 17th and 18th seasons, respectively, in Utah, the two longest continuous tenures with one club. Perhaps it's the sense of decorum and modesty pervading the franchise. The Jazz opened training camp not at a swank practice facility but on the courts of the Franklin Covey Wellness Center, the corporate gym of a Salt Lake City datebook manufacturer. The players drive away in trucks and nondescript SUVs, not the $100,000 Humvees that are de rigueur for other teams. Rooting against the Jazz is like rooting against the Boy Scouts. "It starts at the top with Stockton and Malone and filters down. On this team you work hard and do your job and everything else is just not material," says Amaechi, surely the first NBA player to use the word material in a sentence not pertaining to clothes. As ever, the success of the Jazz this season will be predicated on the play of Stockton (age 39) and Malone (38). Is this the year they finally reach that point where their bodies fall into disrepair, their skills begin to fade? Conventional wisdom might suggest so. But Stockton -- the first player to arrive for practice -- and his running mate drill tirelessly, sport less body fat than a runway model, and might be in better physical condition than any other player at Jazz camp. "Those two don't get out of shape," says Sloan. Yes, coach, but is this the year time finally catches up to them? "Aww, I get tired of answering that." Bigger questions loom, anyway. To wit: In the end, the Jazz will riff on 45-50 wins and make the postseason for the 19th straight season. But, much as we love this quirky, anachronistic team, it simply lacks the players to hit the high notes. Worth notingThe curiosity of camp was Andrei Kirilenko, a 20-year-old Russian forward whom the Jazz drafted in 1999. ... After shooting above 50 percent from the field for the first time in his career and playing superbly the second half of the season, Marshall looked particularly sharp in camp. He claims to have worked out daily with a personal trainer both at home in Reading, Pa., and in Newport Beach, Calif. ... A cranky Malone on what he makes of Michael Jordan's comeback: "It don't really matter to me." Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim covers the NBA for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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