As Good As It Gets: Utah Jazz Just Excitingly Average at Best

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The elephant in the room is so damn big that it's become a stifling misnomer and already just a week into this young NBA season, the radio station is in obvious need of a change.

Change of style. 

Change of tune.

Change of personnel. 

Lost in the midst of playoff exits, free agency hoopla, and the comings-and-goings of annual drafts, the Utah Jazz have just plain lost a step. 

That step that gave way was one of talent. A few years ago, there was a young team that had no sense of identity or demeanor. They had no expectations—no All-Stars. 

The all-mighty buck has trumped the evolution of a roster once boiling-hot with potential and promising outlook. 

There's the cast of usual suspects, nothing familiar to Jazz fans. Somehow, like how befuddling the Twilight saga has been dubbed a respectable progress in film, Utah brought back almost an identical twin of what has been the last three-to-four season in Salt Lake City.

Carlos Boozer is back. Yep, heeeee's baaaack. And he's produced about the same amount of effort as Mehmet Okur's hair stylist. Just kind of messy, all over the place, and a seemingly embarrassing attempt. 

Everyone knows what you get with Boozer and, more importantly, with this team. 

Showing up on game-day is akin to conflicting visits to say, a Taco Bell. The first trip is surprisingly good, those Chalupas seem fresh and coincide quite well with that Mountain Dew you've rightly chosen to drink. 

You think you want to come back. You tell your friends. They don't believe you. You pitch that hard sell with all you've got. 

"This is different, I know what you're thinking, but trust me," you tell them.

As upon a second visit, you leave with a case of runs and a bloated stomach and mind. 

What happened?

Nothing. Precisely.

The Jazz brass have a core of players they think are capable of winning a championship. The Jazz brass is wrong. They couldn't be more wrong. 

Matching Portland's $32 million offer for Paul Millsap left the state and fan base ecstatic. After all, Millsap is what seems to be the vaccine to the Boozer virus that has plagued the franchise ever since his slimy ways became evident last season. 

Okur and Kyle Korver opted to come back, too. Two guys that can shoot the three-pointer, spread the floor and basically have no concept on how to play face-up defense and not foul like they just had their Ferrari stolen. 

So, yeah, the Jazz are 1-3 in a young season. 

Contentment is the word, I'd say.

Content with being just good enough to sell tickets, get a local business to sponsor a first round matchup with, say, the Lakers with all those light blue towels, and watch the Jazz slowly circle the drain in five games to Kobe and Co., yet again. 

To go along with contentment, another popular word this preseason was defense.

Still, the Jazz haven't figured out what it means to play defense, or more even team defense for that matter. 

So far, the Jazz have given up 105.5 points in four games against the Nuggets, Clippers, Rockets and Mavericks. Two of them coming on the EnergySolutions Arena hardwood. 

As absent as the defense has been since Stockton and Malone roamed the court in Utah, the effort has plain crashed-and-burned.

Sure, it's easy to blame Boozer. He's infected the Jazz faithful with "C1B1" and the vaccine is not meeting the proper spectrum of supply-and-demand, but the problems run deeper than Lord Carlos. 

Jerry Sloan has seemed to have lost this team. 

This isn't the '80s, '90s, or even early 2000s. 

These players aren't buying into this tough-guy, play-your-ass-and-brains-off-for-four-straight-quarters mentality. Jerry is Jerry for a reason. He is a basketball genius and is as stubborn as a pissed off rattlesnake. 

He wants what he wants and that's what matters. He wants his players to become dedicated to one another on and off the court and secretly wants to suit up and box the Carl Landry's and Kenyon Martin's right out of the paint for that rebound. 

That's just not how it happens anymore—not for this Jazz team.

And to make the sting worse, if Utah doesn't quickly figure out what kind of team it's going to be in terms of a winning mentality, the most-recognizable face in the state of Utah will soon be hoisting an NBA Trophy with Kobe in Los Angeles, or with Dirk in Dallas. 

Deron Williams is a gamer. Losing is not a word in Williams's vernacular.

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