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The Utah Jazz started playing in 1974 and didn’t post their first .500 season until 1983 but followed it up with more than 20 straight seasons of winning basketball. The Utah Jazz have never won an NBA championship but they did make it to the finals in back-to-back years in 1996 and 1997. Both times, they had to take on the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, and both times, the Bulls took the series in six.
The Jazz teams of old were led by future hall-of-fame players like Karl Malone and John Stockton and Coach Jerry Sloan but the teams now have a different feel to them. This team is led by Andrei Kirilenko, one of the best all-around players that you’ve never heard of. Last year, Kirilenko averaged 16.5 ppg, 8.1 rpg, 3.1 apg, and also had steals and blocks. This year, he’ll have help in the form of Carlos Boozer, one of the top young forwards in the league that the Jazz signed in free agency. The team also signed Mehmet Okur from the Detroit Pistons but lost Greg Ostertag to the Sacramento Kings.
Carlos Arroyo will likely be the point guard for the team and Matt Harpring will return from last year’s season ending knee surgery to start at shooting guard. Kirilenko will start at the small forward position and Boozer will work his way into the power forward spot. The starting center will be Okur who will bring experience after helping the Pistons win the championship last season. The team also struck gold in the draft by selecting Kirk Snyder and Kris Humphries. Snyder, a shooting guard out of Nevada, led his team to a surprising NCAA Tournament run last year and has tons of athleticism. Humphries is a big man out of Minnesota and showed he has tremendous touch around the basket, on the run, and on the perimeter.
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