Let's take a quick moment to reflect on Kevin O'Connor's first three seasons as the Jazz general manager. He made one big trade (Donyell Marshall), had two rather disappointing draft picks (DeShawn Stevenson and Raul Lopez), and had a couple of bad free agent signings (Olden Polynice and John Amaechi). All these moves ended up being pretty inconsequential, as the Jazz rode an aging roster led by Stockton and Malone to two first-round exits and Utah's worst season in the Jerry Sloan era. Not a very good start for the new GM. Let's see how he did in his fourth season.
Season 4: 2002-03
John Stockton's and Karl Malone's contracts were both set to expire in 2003, so it really wasn't much of a surprise that this season was going to be their last together. O'Connor knew this last season, and chose to start a prolonged rebuilding effort instead of injecting some new life into the roster. His main goal seemed to be to wait for the big contracts to expire before attempting something big. This strategy mostly held true this season.
Entering the 2002 draft, O'Connor was confident last year's pick, Lopez, would be Stockton's replacement, so he started focusing on Malone's replacement. I remember before the draft that the Jazz were interested in a power forward from Duke named Carlos Boozer. I was really hoping Utah would take him because he seemed so similar to Malone. And the Jazz probably would have taken him if Curtis Borchardt (see picture above) didn't fall out of the lottery. Borchardt was an exciting prospect because he was a legit 7-footer who could score, rebound, block a lot of shots, and was supposed to have excellent range. But a lot of teams shied away from him because of his chronic foot problems. But that didn't deter O'Connor, who felt Borchardt's promise was too good to pass up. In fact, he was so excited to get the center, he hastily made a trade with Orlando to make sure Borchardt ended up in Utah. The Jazz gave Orlando the 19th and 47th picks for Orlando's 18th pick.
Orlando took Ryan Humphrey and Jamal Sampson with Utah's picks, and neither one of them had meaningful NBA careers. Borchardt, however, quickly proved why more than half the NBA passed up on him. He had to sit out his entire rookie year with injury, and ultimately only played in 83 games over the next two years. I don't blame O'Connor for not foreseeing Lopez's injuries, but Borchardt already had a history with them. And it seems like when 7-footers start hurting their knees, ankles and feet, then everything kind of falls apart (see Greg Oden). Although Borchardt was considered something of a steal at the time, he turned into a steal that needed metal pins and plates in his feet.
The Jazz really didn't miss out on anybody else taken in the first round. The next picks were Kareem Rush, Qyntel Woods, Casey Jacobsen, Tayshaun Prince, Nenad Krstic, Frank Williams, John Salmons, Chris Jeffries, and Dan Dickau. Tayshaun Prince is the best player of the bunch, but it would have been redundant to draft him right after Andrei Kirilenko's decent rookie season. But in the second round, at pick 35, was someone the Jazz should have drafted — Carlos Boozer. I think the main reason he fell to the second round was his height — although he's listed at 6-9, he's really somewhere around 6-7. Despite that, he has shown flashes where he is the best power forward in the game, which is probably the main reason why he was so frustrating while with the Jazz. Believe me, I was glad when he left Utah, but I do think the Jazz should have drafted him in 2002 to get a jump start on the rebuilding process.
O'Connor's first move in the free agency period this season was to replace Bryon Russell and John Starks with an equally old, but lesser-known swingman — Calbert Cheaney. Cheaney was the college player of the year at Indiana in 1993, and he peaked early in his pro career when he averaged 16.6 points per game with the Washington Bullets. With the Jazz, in his 10th season, Cheaney played 81 games and averaged 8.6 ppg, but shot an abysmal 58 percent from the foul line. That's not quite Olden Polynice level, but I do expect more from the starting shooting guard. He did have a .499 field goal percentage, but that was mostly layups. Nevertheless, I guess you could say he got the job done during the last Stockton&Malone season.
O'Connor's next signing was perhaps one of his best, bringing in Matt Harpring to replace Donyell Marshall. I remember going to a Jazz game against the 76ers and wondering who the random white guy was who kept killing us. Turned out to be Harpring, who just played with more hustle and energy than everyone else on the floor. I was really excited to see the Jazz get him, and I feel like he was the perfect fit here. His first season in Utah was by far his best — he averaged 17.6 ppg and 6.6 rpg. He was the breath of fresh air the Jazz needed. I even remember him destroying Kevin Garnett in a couple of classic showdowns. Unfortunately, Harpring's intense style of play destroyed his body, and even though he played seven seasons in Utah, he never played more than 78 games in a season, was forced to severely limit his playing time the last two years, and ultimately had to retire at the ripe age of 32. Now he's just a slight upgrade over Ron Boone as Craig Bolerjack's color commentator. Anyway, I give Kevin O'Connor a lot of credit for bringing in someone who fit in perfectly with the Jazz system. As a fan, I tend to value effort over talent, which is why Matt Harpring was one of my favorite Jazz players. Too bad he couldn't stay healthy.
The next task for O'Connor was to replace backup point guards John Crotty and Rusty LaRue. Initially, Raul Lopez was supposed to be the main backup with Carlos Arroyo as the third. Arroyo was actually a pretty good find by O'Connor. He was a little-known player from Puerto Rico, who spent time with Toronto and Denver the previous season. In his first year with the Jazz, Arroyo didn't play much, but through a strange set of events, he kind of defaulted into the starting job the next year. He played well, but then I think a major Puerto Rico upset over USA gave him too big of an ego, and the Jazz eventually had to ship him out. He then spent the rest of his career bouncing around from team to team, never achieving the same success he had in Utah. But for a guy who was supposed to just backup Raul Lopez, he really did end up having a decent career.
Speaking of Lopez, he tore his ACL before ever suiting up for the Jazz, so the two hotshot rookies Utah was supposed to have both ended up sitting out their entire first year. Thinking quick, O'Connor was able to find another point guard, the legendary Mark Jackson. Jackson, entering his 16th year, became No. 2 on the all-time assists list while with the Jazz. While it was kind of fun having the top two assists guys on the same team, I don't remember Jackson ever really contributing that much to Utah's success. I guess he was a decent backup. I do remember him throwing a few alley-oops to Stevenson and Kirilenko, but that's about it. I also did hear stories about how Jackson was a locker room disturbance, turning some players away from Stockton and Sloan, most notably Stevenson and Amaechi. While I'm not sure how true these stories are, it does make me think that might be one reason why he was traded six times in his career. Isn't that a bit much for a guy who averages 11 assists a game?
The 2002-03 Jazz roster ended up looking rather weird. It was basically a team of small forwards. However, they somehow managed to bring it all together and improve their record from the previous season. Karl Malone led the way again, but he definitely looked his age in his last run with the Jazz. He averaged 20.6 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 4.7 apg and 1.7 spg. Pretty crappy numbers by the Mailman's standards, but pretty good when you remember he was 39 years old at the time. I'd like to see Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett average 20 a game when they're 39. I also heard rumors that Malone played much of this season with a broken hand, but still appeared in 81 games, anyway. I really don't know if that's true at all, but those are the kind of stories that float around Malone and aren't unbelievable. John Stockton, meanwhile, continued his iron man tour, starting all 82 games at the tender age of 40, averaging 10.8 ppg, 7.7 apg and 1.7 spg. This was his final season, and I am grateful that I had the chance to see him play live. Somebody will eventually break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's scoring record, and somebody could eventually surpass Michael Jordan, but there will never ever be another John Stockton. His assist mark will never be touched, and we'll never see another white, 6-1, 175-pound guy accomplish more in the NBA.
Back to the Jazz roster, Andrei Kirilenko followed up his rookie season with another impressive year, averaging 12 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 2.2 bpg and 1.5 spg. My friend and I loved keeping track of all the superstars AK had blocked. "OK, he's block Shaq's shot, and he blocked Tim Duncan, did he block Kevin Garnett?" Those early years with Kirilenko were so much fun. It's funny how easily we can forget. (But that's what happens when you become an emotional head case with an impossible-to-move max contract.) Another small forward for the Jazz (you can never have too many) was Scott Padgett, returning for another (and his last) year with the Jazz. He did average 5.7 ppg, but somehow saw his shooting percentages fall from .476 to .402 from the field and .434 to .338 from 3-point range. I always hoped he could have developed into the shooter the Jazz always needed him to, but it never worked out. Anyway, Jarron Collins got off to a fairly decent start, averaging 5.5 ppg, but then a knee injury knocked him out for the season after just 22 games. He never really did recover after that injury — going from a guy who draws charges and occasionally scores to just a guy who draws charges and never scores. Surprisingly, Greg Ostertag stepped up to fill in for Collins and had his best season in about four years. Big O averaged 5.4 ppg, 6.2 rpg and 1.8 bpg. These numbers didn't quite justify his $7.8 million salary, but it was better than he'd been doing the past few years. But anyway, the Jazz still needed another body after the Collins injury, so O'Connor brought in Tony Massenburg, who at the time, held the record for playing on 11 different NBA teams. I guess he was just one of those guys who makes every GM say, "Yeah, he seems pretty good, let's bring him in" but when it comes contract extension time, the say, "Well, we'll survive if we let him go." And the Jazz fell into a long line of teams who did just that with Massenburg. He was brought in to be a big body, and that's exactly what he was, and little more. He still did contribute a little bit more than DeShawn Stevenson (who somehow showed enough promise to earn another year on his contract) and the woefully inept John Amaechi.
The Jazz finished 47-35 (a slight improvement from the previous season), but ended with the same result — getting knocked out in the first round by the Kings. The Jazz only won one game in the best-of-seven series, and that was mostly due to a randomly monster game from Greg Ostertag (22 points, 12 rebounds, 5 blocks). It really was games like that that made Ostertag so frustrating. If he was going to be bad, then be bad all the time. Don't tease us fans with random moments of amazing. Anyway, the Stockton-to-Malone era came to an end in a blowout in Arco Arena. The Kings fans were kind enough to give the duo a standing ovation when they checked out for the last time. It was a glorious 18-year run, filled with consistent success, two trips to the Finals, and a lifetime of memories. No, they never did win it all, but they achieved a high level of success over a remarkably sustained period, which I think is more impressive than most other players' accomplishments. Perhaps my favorite thing from Stockton and Malone was you always knew what to expect. Whenever you went to a Jazz game, you were almost always guaranteed a win, and, more importantly, you knew for sure you would see your team's best players out there giving it their all no matter what. That effort was probably the biggest difference between the Stockton/Malone era and the Williams/Boozer era. I don't think Stockton and Malone were significantly more talented that Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, but they certainly seemed to work harder and care more, which is why one duo got bronze statues in front of the arena, while the other quickly split up and will eventually be forgotten.
So the 2002-03 season came to an end with a tearful retirement of John Stockton and a mutual parting of ways with Karl Malone. (It really was the best for both sides for him to leave. The Jazz needed to get serious about rebuilding and although seeing Malone pass Kareem in a Jazz uniform would've been nice, it would've simply taken too long.) Finally, Kevin O'Connor got as much of a blank slate as you could hope for in the NBA. Stay tuned to find out what he did with all this new-found flexibility and money.
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