2007-08 NBA PREVIEW

Wow, what a fun filled week. Baseball is finally over. Hooray! Football is in mid-season meaning it's time for Pro-Bowl rosters to be filled out and second-half runs and collapses. And it's time for what used to be my favorite sport as a teenager - NBA basketball!!!

Alright, well I won't focus on too much of what is going on around the league, because honestly basketball is really easy to pick. Everyone who did good last year will probably do well this year, unless they made a major free agent signing or lost someone significant to free agency or injury.

See, NFL "experts" pick this way and end up looking like morons. At the beginning of the year, everyone picked the Bears, Saints (myself included), Chargers, etc. But with how the NFL is created, it doesn't happen that way.

In basketball it does. The Suns will be great. The Spurs should win it all barring a fluke, and Dallas will be great, but choke in the playoffs because their "MVP" is European.

Cleveland won't repeat last year's success, and Boston should win their division and quite possibly the East because they picked up Kevin Garnett.

One team that won't repeat last year's success: our hometown Utah Jazz.

The Jazz way over-exceeded any expectations last year, and we found out we have the best point guard in the league under the age of 30 (behind two-time MVP Steve Nash and Jason Kidd). But we got lucky to face Mr. Choke T-Mac in game seven of the first round against the Rockets. And were lucky that AK-47 shut down Stephen Jackson in Round 2. Had Stephen Jackson not selfishly taken so many stupid shots against AK-47, and let Jason Richardson dominate the shot selection, the Jazz may have lost that round.

Anyway, we lost Derek Fisher. I am not a big fan of Fisher and I am actually glad to get rid of his contract, but we lose his leadership and that's what took us to the next level last season, not to mention him adequately filling our biggest weakness last year.

We also lost glue players Dee Brown and Rafael Araujo. These guys didn't contribute on the court but they worked their butts off in practice and helped set the Jerry Sloan style in between games. The Jazz let both these players go when they could have had them back for cheap. Sure the Russian rookie (second round draft pick Fez) has more upside than the clumsy Brazilian, but the Brazilian brought experience and toughness.

Dee Brown and Derek Fisher were replaced by Jason Hart and Ronnie Price. I like Ronnie Price because he is a local UVSC prospect, but Hart hasn't brought anything to the table yet. He's just a cheaper Derek Fisher without the leadership.

Dee Brown could have easily been the backup point guard (D-Will will get 40 minutes a game this season) and played an up-tempo 8-10 minutes a game. He brings an energy to the court that is much needed for the second unit in spelling Deron Williams.

Hart and Price will be too busy trying to appease coach Jerry Sloan's style and they will play like robots all year long.

Harpring isn't healthy and AK47 wants to lay somewhere else and the Jazz should have tried to three-team trade in a Shawn Marion - Lamar Odom deal. We are lucky to have AK's talents back, and he'll play more with Matt Harpring recovering from surgery.

We are forgetting one major probability in the Jazz near future. Carlos Boozer has over a 50% chance of getting injured this year. He's been injured in two of his three seasons here, and he enters the season out of shape. If he could down for 10-30 games, our regular season is screwed and we barely make the playoffs as a 6, 7, or 8 seed and we get tossed in the first round by Phoenix, Dallas, or San Antonio.

The unrealistic optimism for this year will wear on coach Sloan and will force him to retire after the "unfulfilled" season. This is actually a good thing though because if Jerry Sloan's old school butt retires, then point guard Deron Williams will want to sign his contract extension with a younger, more up-tempo coach that will replace coach Sloan.

Then the following season (2008-09) will be the year of the Utah Jazz. The Suns will either get their title this year or dismantle if they don't. The Spurs will be in a rebuilding year if they don't repeat this year, and Mark Cuban will blow up Dallas if they don't win it all also.

Deron Williams will direct the team under a new coach. Okur will be in a contract year (along with Boozer I believe) and the Jazz will know by then if Ronnie Brewer is the answer at the two guard. AK47 will probably be traded or rejuvinated when Sloan leaves, and Milsap will be playing for a huge contract. It's the Jazz golden opportunity to bring us years of playoff years to come if we get rid of AK47 and Okur and build around a new coach, Deron and Boozer.

Yeah. I might end up liking the NBA more than the NFL just like I used to :)