Is Kevin O'Connor a Good GM? Part 5

What? These guys missed the playoffs?! Oops! That was a spoiler alert for Utah's first post-Stockton&Malone season. However, I will have to point out that it really wasn't that bad, if it wasn't particularly good. Kevin O'Connor's main plan was to rebuild the Jazz around Raul Lopez (the future Stockton) and Curtis Borchardt (a taller, more-skilled replacement for Malone), flanked by exciting small forward Andrei Kirilenko and gritty small forward Matt Harpring. Jerry Sloan agreed to stay with the Jazz (even though he could have left and no one would have blamed him), so O'Connor probably thought things would be OK during this rebuilding period.

But it is important to note that the Jazz did anticipate the next couple of years to be rough. I seem to remember a TV special with O'Connor, Sloan and Larry H. Miller bracing Jazz fans for the upcoming rebuilding. They said their main plan was stability from the front office to the coaching staff to even the roster. Miller even promised a return to the playoffs in three years. That did happen, but it was it with Lopez and Borchardt? Let's find out.

Season 5: 2003-04

When people talk about great drafts in NBA history, there are always three years that take the top spots in some order: 1984 (Olajuwon, Jordan, Barkley, Stockton), 1996 (Iverson, Bryant, Nash, Allen), and 2003 (James, Wade, Anthony, Bosh). But 2003 wasn't just top-heavy, it was also incredibly deep. With the 19th pick, the Jazz took another gamble on a European player — "sharp shooter" Sasha Pavlovic from Serbia. I put sharp shooter in quotes because Pavlovic is one of those classic shooters who can't shoot (just ask Boston). In his rookie season, Sasha put up a .396 field goal percentage and a .271 3-pointer percentage, while averaging 4.8 points per game. Not exactly a fitting replacement for Jeff Hornacek. The next season, the NBA held an expansion draft for the Charlotte Bobcats, forcing each team to leave some players available to be taken by Charlotte. It was little surprise that Pavlovic was left exposed. The Bobcats didn't want him, but took him anyway to trade to Cleveland. He didn't do much there and has bounced around the league since. Currently, he's with Boston, not filling in for a hurt Ray Allen like Celtics fans wish he would. Quite frankly, I'm surprised he's still in the NBA. However, I don't blame O'Connor for looking for a shooter in this draft. But, just for fun, let's look at who the Jazz could've grabbed in 2003.

The 20th pick was shooting guard Dahntay Jones, who's a pretty good defender but by no means a sharp shooter. No. 21 was the versatile, but lazy Boris Diaw, who probably would have frustrated Jazz fans as much as Ostertag. The next five picks (Zoran Planinic, Travis Outlaw, Brian Cook, Carlos Delfino and Ndudi Ebi) never really amounted to too much, but No. 27 was high schooler Kendrick Perkins, who was the starting center for Boston when they won the title a few years ago. He probably could have the big man to solve the Jazz's problems, but why draft a center when you already have Greg Ostertag and John Amaechi? No. 28 was high-scoring guard Leandro Barbosa. He could have helped the Jazz, but as being neither a 3-point shooter nor a true point guard, it makes sense why Utah passed him up. The last pick in the first round was current Jazzman Josh Howard. Last year, Howard was mostly hurt, but he did have a few moments of productivity. But when he was at his prime, he was an All-Star who could score, defend, and do pretty much everything else in between. No doubt his talent would have helped the Jazz, but I don't know how he would have fit in with Kirilenko and Harpring, who both played his position.

Some notable names in the second round taken before Utah's No. 47 pick were Jason Kapono, Luke Walton, BYU's Travis Hansen, Steve Blake, Willie Green, Zaza Pachulia, Keith Bogans and Matt Bonner. I think any one of these guys could have made an impact on the Jazz, especially Kapono, who was every bit a sharp shooter as Pavlovic, with the exception of being a senior from UCLA instead of a relative unknown from Serbia. But why should O'Connor take the safe bet in the first round? He hasn't done it yet!

With the 47th pick, O'Connor stumbled onto the biggest steal of his career at this point with Mo Williams. Playing as the third-string point guard, Williams averaged five points per game, and showed enough promise to earn an offer sheet from the Milwaukee Bucks, which O'Connor deemed as too high to match. Williams later went on to average more than 17 points per game for the Bucks and Cavs, and even snuck into an All-Star game while riding LeBron's coattails. Currently, he's buried on the Clippers bench under their overabundance of point guards, and O'Connor still considers letting Mo go as one of his biggest mistakes. Yes, it was a mistake, but I don't think it was one of his biggest. As good as Mo is, I don't think he would have been that good as the Jazz's starting point guard. Even when he was at his best in Cleveland, I didn't really think he was that good of a point guard. He's just a guy who can occasionally hit a few big shots, but not someone I'd consider a leader of a team. But I guess Mo really was the best player left in the draft at that point, as the only other relevant name left on the board was one-time Jazzman Kyle Korver. Now here's an interesting thought: what if the Jazz drafted Barbosa and Korver instead of Pavlovic and Williams. They're essentially the same players, but potentially slightly better. I guess you'll have to ask the guy from Men in Black III who can see an infinite amount of possibilities. Let's get back to reality.

O'Connor entered the 2003 offseason knowing he couldn't keep playing the wait-and-see game. Stockton retired and Malone went to the Lakers, giving the Jazz plenty of cap space for the first time in O'Connor's career. With all this money available, he had to sign somebody. But was there anybody to sign?

His first attempt was Corey Maggette, whom he signed to an offer sheet for a six-year, $42 million contract. (Well, O'Connor did pursue Andre Miller and Brad Miller before that, but both of them turned him down. Apparently ex-Ute Andre would have been too distracted to play in Utah.) I found the Maggette offer odd, though because he played the same position as Utah's two best players (Kirilenko and Harpring). Luckily for the Jazz, the Clippers matched Utah's offer. While Maggette is a good scorer with a tremendous knack for getting to the free throw line, he's a bit of a ball hog and has a curious history of never having played on a decent NBA team. I think he would have been a horrible fit for the Jazz and O'Connor should thank the Clippers for bailing him out.

O'Connor's next official act was re-signing Carlos Arroyo, who had backed up Stockton and Mark Jackson the previous season. Since Andre Miller turned down the Jazz, Utah's three point guards at the start of the year were Arroyo, Raul Lopez and Mo Williams. Since Arroyo was the only one with any kind of NBA experience, he became the default starter, and surprisingly didn't suck. He averaged 12.6 points and 5 assists per game his first year as a starter, and probably would have had more good seasons with the Jazz if it weren't for the summer of 2004. That was when he led Puerto Rico to a stunning victory over USA and developed a big ego, which, I think, ruined his career. If he would have stayed humble and listened to Sloan, he probably could have been something.

O'Connor's next move was truly a perplexing one that only gets worse the more I look at it. He traded a 2004 second round draft pick to the Sacramento Kings for Keon Clark, a 2004 second round pick and a 2007 second round pick. Now, I remember being excited by this. Clark had averaged 11 points, 7 rebounds, and nearly 2 blocks a game with Toronto, and put up similar, if slightly lower numbers in Sacramento. But how were the Jazz able to get him (and two draft picks) for just one second round pick? Doesn't that seem too easy? Shouldn't that set off some red flags? O'Connor probably thought what I just assumed at the time, that the Kings just really needed to clear some cap space, so they were forced to part ways with this emerging talent. While that may have been partly true, I think the main reason had something to do with Clark's drug and alcohol abuse. On his Wikipedia page, it quotes him as saying he never played a sober game in the NBA. Isn't it the job of an NBA general manager to know these things? Did O'Connor hope Keon Clark could turn his life around for the Jazz or was he just doing a favor for Sacramento? Or maybe he just felt like he had to do something with that cap space since he couldn't get the Millers or Maggette. Whatever O'Connor's reasoning was, he ended up paying Clark $5 million to appear in two games for the Jazz. (I'm not 100% sure if the Jazz really had to pay that full amount, but that was his listed salary.)

Following that trade, O'Connor then signed Michael Ruffin. He only averaged 2.2 ppg, but he did get 5 rpg, and was one of my favorite players on this team. Probably because he seemed to work harder and hustle more than most other players, even though he was severely limited with his skill set. Sadly, injuries kept him to just 41 games and the Jazz didn't re-sign him the next year.

By this time, training camp was fast approaching and O'Connor still didn't have much to show from his massive salary cap. He did manage to sign Jason Terry to a three-year, $22 million offer sheet, but the Hawks matched it. At the time, Terry was averaging 17 points and 7 assists a game. Later, he became a legendary sixth man and helped Dallas win the title last year. He probably wouldn't have made a great starting point guard, but his scoring really could have helped the Jazz. This was a tough blow for Utah, especially since it came just four days before training camp.

At basically the eleventh hour, O'Connor signed one more player to fill the roster. This was a then-unknown shooting guard named Raja Bell. O'Connor really lucked out with this one, as Bell proved to be an excellent defender and decent 3-point shooter. Hot Rod Hundley even started a fun "Raja rings the bell!" call. In his first season with the Jazz, Raja played in all 82 games, scoring 11.2 ppg. He is with the Jazz again, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about him right now. I guess I'll save that for when I get to O'Connor's 12th and 13th seasons. But for the 2003-04 season, Bell was a breath of fresh air. He may not have been the shooting guard we initially wanted, but he was the shooting guard we needed.

Right after O'Connor signed Bell, he was finally able to get rid of John Amaechi, by trading him with a second-round pick to Houston for Glen Rice and three second-round picks. The important part of this trade was getting rid of Amaechi, who never played another NBA game after this trade. The little fantasy bonus was having Glen Rice for a couple of days. I knew his playing days were pretty much over, but I still got excited at the idea of having one of the best 3-point shooters of all time on the Jazz. However, he was waived by the Jazz immediately after the trade. I don't know if it was because he didn't want to be in Utah or if the Jazz didn't want him or both. He did end up playing 18 games with the Clippers that season, but all that did was confirm the fact he really needed to retire.

So with Amaechi (mercifully) gone and Borchardt hurt (again), O'Connor had to sign another big man at the last minute, the goofy-looking Ben Handlogten. Although he was basically talentless, he was likable enough, and he managed to play 38 games over two seasons with the Jazz.

Looking back on all this, I can now see why some people predicted this Jazz team to win only nine games. The previous team barely made the playoffs with Stockton and Malone. This team didn't have those two Hall of Famers, and the best new player Kevin O'Connor brought in was ... Raja Bell? It was a rather bleak summer. Here's a look at the roster:

Leading the way was Andrei Kirilenko with 16.8 ppg, 8.1 rpg, 2.8 bpg and 1.9 spg. Right behind him was Matt Harpring with 16.2 ppg and 8 rpg, but he only played 31 games due to a knee injury that really ruined his career. The default starting shooting guard was DeShawn Stevenson, who put up 11.4 ppg, which ended up being a career-high, which is sad, considering people thought he could get 20 a game when he was drafted. Raul Lopez played all 82 games (surprisingly) in his rookie season (two years after the Jazz drafted him) and averaged 7 points per game behind Arroyo.

The oldest player on the Jazz was suddenly Greg Ostertag, playing in the final year of his infamous contract. Remarkably, he had one of the best years of his career with 6.8 ppg, a career-high 7.4 rpg, and 1.8 bpg. As weird as it sounds, Big O really was a huge reason the Jazz didn't completely collapse this season. His backup was Jarron Collins, who had 6 ppg, and the man who was supposed to be the starter, Curtis Borchardt, only played 16 games his rookie year. Because he, Ruffin, Clark and Handlogten couldn't stay healthy, O'Connor had to bring in big men Paul Grant and Mikki Moore midway through the season. Grant only played in 10 games and was out of the NBA when his 10-day contracts ran out. Moore appeared in 28 games and showed he really had some talent and spent eight years in the league, peaking with nearly 10 points and 5 rebounds per game in New Jersey. I was quite sad when he left Utah.

At the trade deadline, O'Connor decided to shake things up with a couple of trades. The first was sending DeShawn Stevenson and a second-round pick to Orlando for Gordan Giricek. By this point, it was painfully obvious that Stevenson was not Utah shooting guard of the future, so getting rid of him was a good move. Giricek initially had a great impact, averaging 13.5 ppg his first 25 games in Utah. For some reason however, he never played that well again for the Jazz and eventually became just another disappointing shooting guard for Utah. But right after the trade, he was a big improvement over DeShawn.

The second trade sent Keon Clark and Ben Handlogten to Phoenix for Tom Gugliotta, a 2004 first-round pick, a 2005 second-round pick and New York's 2010 first-round pick. This was also a good trade because it got rid of the cancerous Clark. Phoenix did this to get rid of Gugliotta's $11.7 million salary. Although he was a one-time All-Star who averaged 20 a game with Minnesota, by 2004, Googs was all but washed up. He did start 24 games for the Jazz, but only averaged 3.7 ppg and 5.2 rpg. I find it odd that it can become nearly impossible for older stars like him to score — he only made 37 percent of his shots, and he was the power forward! But, like I said, O'Connor didn't make this trade for Gugilotta — it was to get rid of Keon Clark and bring in some draft picks, which worked out just fine.

2003-04 was a really weird season for the NBA. Although the Jazz finished with a surprising 42-40 record, they missed the playoffs by one game. But in this year, the Eastern and Western Conferences were as wide apart as they've ever been, so a 42-40 record earned Miami home court advantage, while it wasn't enough for Utah. Even the Finals were really weird. The Lakers were by far the best team, but lost to the Pistons because Malone was hurt and Kobe and Shaq were having a hissy fit.

It was a rather rough season for Kevin O'Connor. He wasn't able to sign anybody he wanted in the offseason despite having oodles of money to do it with. He took another gamble in the first round on a disappointing European, but had another good second-round pick. He found a "diamond in the rough" in Raja Bell, and was able to get rid of some dead weight in DeShawn Stevenson and John Amaechi, while stockpiling a plethora of draft picks. Altogether, 18 different players suited up for the Jazz, but Jerry Sloan was somehow able to keep things together enough to squeak out a winning record. Not bad for a team that was supposed to win only nine games.

Feat of Clay

Time now for another Batman episode. Today is the classic two-parter "Feat of Clay." Although these were the 20th and 21st episodes produced, they were so good, they got bumped up to be the fourth and fifth episodes aired on Sept. 8th and 9th in 1992.

Part I

I love the beginning of this episode. Not only do we finally get to meet Lucius Fox, but we see an evil Bruce Wayne. Wait, Bruce is working for the vile gangster Roland Daggett?! What a way to start! That definitely deserves a point.

I'll add another point for Daggett and his henchmen. They each had their little quirks like Raymond Bell, who constantly listened to the police bands through his headphones, and "Germs," the appropriately named germaphobe. And then Daggett himself, who is one of my favorite villains in the whole show. He may not be quite as tough as Rupert Thorne, but he does an excellent job of maintaining a positive public image while secretly keeping his criminal activities underground.

This is a deliciously dark episode, with one of the best parts being Batman coming as close to losing control as we've seen in this show. He was rightfully upset with the idea of Bruce Wayne being framed. It's one thing to mess with Batman, but Bruce? No way! He quickly went after Bell, taking advantage of his police band listening habit to track him down with the Batplane. He then ripped Bell out of his car, holding him by the wrist, and flew him around the city while interrogating him. Batman only let Bell go after he fainted and the police demanded he release his "prisoner," which he did by dropping him into a swimming pool. From the height he fell, Bell is very lucky to have survived. That was pretty cold of Batman. It was pretty nice to Batman be this angry, so I'll raise the score to an 8.

Not only did this episode have a great beginning, but it ended on a wonderful cliffhanger. Not only was Bruce arrested, but a new super villain was formed — Clayface. This ending makes me glad I have the next episode on DVD and I don't have to wait till the next day to see how this story resolves. For such a great ending, I'll make the final score of Part I a 9.

Part II

It is necessary to have your best animation team on hand for a Clayface episode, and they really knocked it out of the park for this one. Not only were the clay transformation sequences well done, but the episode as a whole was just beautiful. There was a lot of play with shadows and colors. One of my favorite scenes was Daggett and Germs walking over a vat of green chemicals in the dark. The green glow cast on the shadowy Daggett not only served as a visually interesting scene, but also emphasized Daggett's dark side. I'll award a point for this stellar animation.

Like all good Batman villains, Clayface has a somewhat sympathetic origin story. His mutation into a monster was mostly due to a series of circumstances outside of his control. And although he ultimately made the bad choices that put him on that path, you still can't help but feel bad for him. I also thought his creation was plausible enough for this more "realistic" show that hasn't had any other "monsters" beside Man-Bat. I don't mind having Batman fight the occasional monster, just as long as it's well explained. I also loved the voice of Clayface provided by Ron Perlman, who would later be Slade on Teen Titans. For being such an interesting villain, I will raise the score to 7.

Similar to how Batman took down one of Daggett's henchmen through his quirk, Batman targeted Germs through his fear of diseases. But this time, it was a bit more in accordance with the show, having Batman threaten the goon with a jar of seawater, so he never really was in any true danger. While I did like Batman's burst of anger in the first episode, I'm glad he calmed down enough to be the Batman we all know and love. For that, I'll add another point.

All the fights with Clayface were simply captivating. Not only was the shape-shifting great, but seeing Batman's reaction to this true monster was a treat in itself. This was a new, tough foe for Batman, but I like how they didn't make Clayface too powerful, giving him rather low stamina to limit his fighting ability. However, he still was plenty creepy, especially when he turned into the woman at Daggett's show. One of my favorite parts was watching that lady turn into Clayface while yelling, "Why don't you tell them about me?!" Gives me chills every time. One more point for Clayface!

This really is an iconic revival of a classic Batman villain that at the time was kind of messed up in the comics. There have been something like four different Clayfaces all with slightly different abilities. But Batman: The Animated Series brought the best elements of all the Clayfaces together into the standard villain we're used to today. Sadly, there are very few stories now where Batman fights Clayface straight-up like this — they mostly just use Clayface to impersonate someone else. But we'll always have these near-perfect episodes to enjoy some classic Clayface action. Why didn't I give this a 10? Perhaps because it was sad, but not as sad as "Heart of Ice" or "Two-Face." Perhaps because it was just a bit disturbing, although I did appreciate the darker tones. Regardless, a 9 still is a very good score.

Final score: 9

Spider-Man

With Marvel finally coming out with a new Spider-Man movie, I've decided to take a look at what once was Marvel's pride and joy. Sadly, with all this Avengers hype lately, X-Men and Spider-Man have been relegated to the background. But once upon a time, our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was king. In fact, there were talks of making a Spider-Man movie as early as 1986, but companies kept squabbling over the movie rights, and at least one company went bankrupt before it could put Spider-Man on the big screen. Finally, in 2002, Spider-Man was produced, directed by Sam Raimi, and starring Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe and Kirsten Dunst.

While watching this movie, I realized I'd forgotten how much I liked this movie. Maybe it's because it strove for the same epic vein as Superman and Batman. This started with a great music score by Danny Elfman during the opening credits. To me, this said that this was an authentic, serious superhero movie, which Spider-Man and Marvel both desperately needed. I also enjoyed all the DC references throughout. When Spider-Man was trying to figure out how to shoot his webs, he said, "Up, up and away" (Superman) and "Shazam" (Captain Marvel). Later, we saw him ripping off his shirt Superman-style, and even Aunt May reminds a busy Peter that he isn't Superman. Sam Raimi was wise to pay homage to DC. If you want to be a good superhero, you have to learn from the best. I'll add a point for this.

I'll raise a score to a 7 for Tobey Maguire's wonderful portrayal of Peter Parker. Anybody can play Spider-Man — he was mostly CGI and stunt doubles. The most important character of the movie is Parker, and Maguire did an excellent job of making sweet and nerdy. He was to Peter Parker what Christopher Reeve was to Clark Kent. Whenever I think of Peter Parker, I now think of Tobey Maguire.

I'll add a point for the logical change of having Spider-Man produce his own webs instead of creating artificial ones. This was a vast improvement over the comics. I never thought it made sense for a high school student who miraculously gained super powers from a spider bite to suddenly desire and know how to make artificial webs. He already has super strength and agility, so why did he have the compulsive need to start swinging around on roof tops? I guess he needed to do something to show the world his powers really did come from a spider, but if you think about, that spider didn't give him very many powers — just strength, agility, and the ever-vague "spider sense." I also got tired of all the web-cartridge plot lines — Spidey running out of cartridges or having to change his formula to make the webs stickier. It was a stroke of genius common sense to make his webs natural.

The score will go up to a 9 for the hilarious wrestling scene starring Randy "Macho Man" Savage as Bone Saw. I just had a lot of fun during this sequence, and it became even better when I realized they brought in a real professional wrestler to play the part.

I liked how Spider-Man's first costume was exactly what you'd expect from a high schooler. It was awkward, cheesy and cheap. But then suddenly, he pulled out this beautiful costume out of nowhere. I couldn't help thinking where he got it from or how he made it. It actually cost the movie studio $100,000 to make the costume, so how did Peter Parker do it? Also, Peter was a very good artist. Maybe he should have worked as a comic book artist instead of a photographer. I know I'm not supposed to think about these things, but I couldn't help it, and I have to take a point off.

But I will give a point back for J. Jonah Jameson, played by J.K. Simmons. He was absolutely perfect. J. Jonah Jameson is always exactly the same in every medium — he's the character you love to hate, and Simmons knocked him out of the park. Spider-Man is infinitely better whenever JJJ is involved.

But I do have to take a point off for the Green Goblin. I didn't have anything against Willem Dafoe, I actually really enjoyed him. I just think it was a terrible shame that he spent half the movie hiding his animated face behind a rather strangely-shaped helmet. In the comics, the Green Goblin wears a long purple stocking cap, but in this movie, they just made the helmet oddly stretch out in the back for no reason. They also tried to get around hiding his face by occasionally having his yellow eyes slide back to show his real eyes and allowing his mouth to be seen through the black mesh of his helmet-mask. All together, it was rather weird looking. I also have never been a big fan of his glider. What an inefficient way to fly! I also could never figure out how he controlled it. He'd rarely push a random button on his arm, but I guess all other movement were orchestrated by extremely sophisticated heel and toe movements. I know Green Goblin is a classic Spider-Man villain, and I do agree with using him in the first movie, but I think they could have done a better job with him.

The score will drop to a 7 for the annoying Thanksgiving scene. I liked the bit with a bleeding Spider-Man hiding from Norman Osborn and his super hearing, but just about everything else bugged me. Instead of having Thanksgiving at the Osborn mansion, they held it in Peter and Harry's tiny apartment.  At the beginning of the meal, Aunt May slaps Norman's hand rather sharply for taking a bite before saying grace. Come on Aunt May, that's one of the richest, most powerful men in the world (who also happens to be a super villain). I don't care if you can survive 47 heart attacks at the ripe age of 102, you shouldn't be so mean to this distinguished and dangerous guest. Later, Norman realizes Peter is Spider-Man and quickly leaves. Harry tries to stop him, so Norman tells him that Mary Jane only loves him for his money. MJ hears this and quickly becomes offended and Thanksgiving is tragically ruined. I do understand the purpose for this scene, but everyone seemed to get too mad too quickly, and it just bugged me.

I will add a point for the climatic fight at the end. I loved how Green Goblin viciously beat the crap out of Spider-Man at the start. He even took a grenade to face right off the bat. Those were some tough injuries for him to overcome. I even liked the pre-fight scene of loyal New Yorkers throwing garbage and rocks at Green Goblin. I do like to think that if a lot of people saw someone trying to kill a bunch of innocent kids then they'd stand up and try to stop him. All in all, it was a pretty nice fight sequence. It also ended on a classic note, with the Green Goblin saying "Oh" right before he accidentally killed himself.

Sadly, I have to take a point off for what immediately followed this fight. Spider-Man took off the Green Goblin armor (I don't know what he did with it), and respectfully laid the deceased Norman Osborn to rest in his own bed. Harry saw this and immediately assumed Spider-Man killed his dad, and he started yelling, "What have you done!" while pulling out a gun. Yeah, Harry, Spider-Man killed your dad and brought him back to his house to gloat because he is that evil. Sadly, Spider-Man didn't stay to explain, setting up a rather annoying side story for the next two films. All Spidey had to do was say, "Sorry, Harry, the Green Goblin killed your father. I tried to save him." This was true, from a certain point of view. Instead, Harry became unreasonably mad at Spider-Man and seriously damaged the next two movies in this franchise. Just thinking about his later role makes me mad.

Spider-Man truly was amazing in 2002. Yes, not all the special effects are still amazing 10 years later, and I did have my complaints with Green Goblin and a few other plot points, but altogether, this was an exciting, emotional, and well-done film. X-Men officially started the Marvel movie golden age, but Spider-Man kicked it into high gear, causing everyone to forget about DC. Now the Avengers and Batman have pushed our favorite web-slinger aside, and I am quite pessimistic about this new reboot. But if it fails (like I'm sure it will), I'll just pop in Spider-Man or Spider-Man 2 to satisfy my wall-crawling needs.

Final score: 7

Is Kevin O'Connor a good GM? Part 4

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.

Prophecy of Doom

The next episode up on my Batman diversion is "Prophecy of Doom," which was the 19th episode produced and 22nd aired on Oct. 6, 1992. This, like many Batman episodes, had a rather interesting idea, but wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

The main villain here is nothing more than a con man, swindling the rich by predicting travesties he causes. He certainly is no super villain, which I kind of like. Batman doesn't always have to fight someone like the Joker. But what I really liked here was how the fake prophet, Nostromos, targeted Bruce Wayne simply for his money. As the richest man in a city swarming with criminals and super villains, Bruce should be a pretty desirable target. So for this, I will add one point.

Now, I normally don't penalize this show for its animation, as it generally is rather rough compared to today's standards, but in this episode it was particularly bad. A lot of parts were very jerky and sloppy, especially one scene where Batman was getting into the Batmobile and he shifted up and down about a foot with each step. It was very distracting, even in the fight scenes. When the animation becomes this large of a distraction, I have to take a point off.

I'll drop the score down to a 4 for Batman's inability to quickly dispose of Nostromos' lone henchman, Lucas. He didn't seem particularly extraordinary in anyway, just your average henchman. So why did Batman have such a hard time fighting him? He was only one guy, and he wasn't even really strong or anything. I think this episode would have been better if Nostromos had multiple henchmen, or if they established that Lucas was highly-trained ex-Marine or something to allow him to fight so well against Batman in one-on-one combat.

Final score: 4

Beware the Gray Ghost

I've recently had a string of sports posts, so I decided to take a quick break and do some more Batman episodes. First up is the classic "Beware the Gray Ghost." It was the 18th episode produced and 32nd aired on Nov. 4, 1992.

The episode starts with a nice, nostalgic black-and-white flashback of a young Bruce watching the Gray Ghost. Not only did I get a kick out of the Golden Age Gray Ghost cartoon, but I always love to see glimpses of Bruce's past, no matter how brief. I'll add a point for this.

I'll add another point for Adam West playing the Gray Ghost. This whole episode was loosely based off Adam West's career — he was so well-known as Batman, he had trouble playing anything else. Luckily, he was a good enough sport to play this part. Today, he's made a living playing a parody of himself, but he really is a good actor, and I enjoyed his performance as both the Gray Ghost and the actor Simon Trent.

The score will rise to an 8 for the excitement of Batman finally meeting his childhood hero, followed by the disappointment in realizing that he's not everything he wanted him to be. I like this because it makes Batman more human and even a little vulnerable. But this episode has a good ending. Even though the Gray Ghost wasn't initially the childhood hero Batman remembered, he did come around to become a sort of hero. He ended as another ally to Batman in addition to being his inspiration.

I'll add one more bonus point for the cameos of producer Bruce Timm as the Toymaker and writer Paul Dini as the movie store clerk. It was a great tribute to the creators of the show, and they also did quite well in their performances, I felt.

This really was a beautiful episode with all the black-and-white and Golden Age feel, and a fitting homage to Adam West. We sometimes give West a hard time for making Batman too goofy, but we do need to occasionally recognize the good he did for the character. He brought Batman to a wider audience, and by making him more well-known, created the possibilities for him to be improved and become the greatest superhero in the world. This episode served as a nice reminder to that, and it was executed nearly flawlessly. I would give it a perfect score if it weren't for everyone's paralyzed fear from some remote control race cars and the sheer ridiculousness of Batman randomly pulling a flame thrower out of nowhere. These complaints weren't big enough to take away any points — they just prevented me from adding another point.

Final score: 9

Is Kevin O'Connor a good GM? Part 3

The main inspiration for me to examine Kevin O'Connor's career was the debate on whether the Jazz should have drafted Raul Lopez over Tony Parker. Many fans, and Brad Rock, couldn't help asking this question while watching Parker destroy the Jazz and remembering that Lopez only lasted a year and a half in the NBA. It's hard to not criticize your team for passing up on a future Finals MVP. Since this is regarded as O'Connor's biggest blunder, I'm going to try to give this move as thorough an examination as possible.

Season 3: 2001-02

After having a busy 2000 offseason, O'Connor was unusually quiet in 2001. I find this odd, considering how disheartening the first round loss to Dallas was. The Jazz had very few holes to fill. Olden Polynice and David Benoit retired, and Jacque Vaughn and Danny Manning left as free agents, but that was it. Everyone else was staying and 1999 draftee Andrei Kirilenko was finally making his move to the NBA. And as Brad Rock pointed out, the Jazz had virtually no cap space in 2001. Greg Ostertag was by far the most overpaid player on this roster, but Donyell Marshall ($6.5 million), Bryon Russell ($5 million), and John Starks ($2 million) were also overpaid to a certain extent based on their production. So to recap, in 2001, the Jazz lost in the first round for the first time since 1995, and a full salary/roster made any major changes quite daunting. So O'Connor decided to play things safe this year and rely heavily on Malone, Stockton, Marshall and Russell. I'll tell you how that turned out later.

The 2001 draft was a lot better than 2000's. Before I jump into the Lopez pick, let me remind you that Utah had previously owned Denver's 2001 pick, which turned out to be No. 11. Boston acquired this pick through the four-team Donyell Marshall trade, and they wasted it on Kedrick Brown, who had a rather insignificant NBA career. But if Utah didn't make that four-team trade, it would have had the chance to draft Richard Jefferson, Troy Murphy, and Zach Randolph. Now that's something interesting to consider. Give up Donyell Marshall for a better 3-point shooting forward or a potential replacement for Malone. Undoubtedly, this would have hurt the Jazz in the short term, but things might have turned out better in the long run. Just a small thought.

Kevin O'Connor seemed content with the idea of DeShawn Stevenson being the future at shooting guard, so he focused this draft on finding a replacement for Stockton. (Stockton signed a two-year deal set to expire at the same time as Malone's, and many believed he would retire after that.) So the first player O'Connor pegged to replace the best point guard ever was Spaniard Raul Lopez. During the 2001 draft, I was at a Rick Majerus basketball camp (where he chewed me out for not sitting cross-legged once), and I initially just heard the Jazz drafted "some guy from Spain." For a moment, I thought that was Pau Gasol, and I got really excited. But then I realized that Gasol would never have fallen to No. 24. Instead, the Jazz ended up with the "Spanish Stockton," according to many. I'm not sure if this comparison was based on his game as much as his physical appearance. (Lopez was roughly the same height and weight of Stockton.) Another attractive feature to Lopez was that he was still under contract with his Spanish team, meaning the Jazz wouldn't have to use any precious salary cap to pay him for the next year or two. The idea was to let him continue to develop in Spain for a bit, then be ready to fill in Stockton's shoes after his retirement. This does make sense to a certain degree, but what would have happened had O'Connor insisted instead on bringing in Stockton's replacement immediately to learn from the master firsthand, or to go in a different direction entirely and fill a different need?

The 25th pick of the 2001 draft was Gerald Wallace, whose athleticism would have been a welcomed change of pace for the Jazz. But with his game being so similar to Kirilenko's, I don't think he would've found much playing time. The next pick was Samuel Dalembert, who probably could have been a decent center for the Jazz, and his humanitarian work would have won him over with the fans. But if he started underperforming on a massive contract (like he did with Philadelphia), he would have been just another Ostertag. The 27th pick was current Jazzman Jamaal Tinsley. He was extremely talented, and had some brilliant seasons with the Pacers, but became such a head case, Indiana actually started paying him to stay away from the team. Now that he's old and mellowed out, he was fine this year in Utah, but I have a feeling that had the Jazz drafted him, he would have been a pain in the butt and a detriment to the team. Or he would have picked up good habits from Stockton and Malone instead of bad habits from Ron Artest and Jermaine O'Neal, and never would have been a troublemaker. Doubtful, but you never know. Finally, with the final pick of the first round, the San Antonio Spurs selected Tony Parker from France.

Everybody sees Tony Parker now (Finals MVP, multiple All-Star, etc.) and forgets what was known about him in 2001. Back then, the big knock on him was no one could tell if he was a point guard or a shooting guard. Even today, I wouldn't call him a true, traditional point guard — at least not in the sense Stockton ran the position. And for a team looking for Stockton's replacement, this was a very important point (even though O'Connor replaced Hornacek with Stevenson, who's about as un-Hornacek-like as possible). Also, it has to be remembered that San Antonio barely drafted Parker in the first place. They weren't impressed with him after his first workout, but after watching some more tape on him, decided to give him a second workout. The Spurs took a gamble on Parker, and it paid off immediately. He was named to the All-Rookie First Team, and has been San Antonio's point guard ever since, helping them win three titles. But what would have happened had the Jazz grabbed this Frenchman before the Spurs? Parker has always been quite adept at the layup/teardrop shot he uses to always be among the league leaders in points in the paint. Stockton had a similar shot, and probably could have taught Parker how to use that to help set up teammates. I don't think Parker would have suddenly become a pass-first point guard just because he backed up Stockton, but he most likely would have been able to improve many of his point guard skills. I also think Parker would have seen some playing time alongside Stockton, especially given Utah's woeful shooting guard situation at the time. I also don't think Utah would have won three titles with Tony Parker, unless they could have brought in Tim Duncan somehow. But I do believe Parker could have been an anchor on the post-Stockton&Malone rebuilding team, and would have continued on through today, preventing the Jazz from having to demolish and rebuild their team a second time in the past decade.

There are also a few players drafted after Parker the Jazz could have got. At pick No. 30 was Gilbert Arenas. Recent injuries and incidents like bringing guns into locker rooms have caused us to forget how truly phenomenal Arenas was in his prime. But I think incidents like bringing guns into locker rooms would have prevented him from being a good fit with the Jazz. The 37th pick was Mehmet Okur, who eventually did make his way onto the Jazz. While I was frustrated with Okur at times, he was an All-Star and did help us win a few games. If Utah picked him in the draft, they would have had him for a few extra years and wouldn't have been tempted to sign players like John Amaechi. Pick No. 39 was another current Jazzman, Earl Watson. He has proved to be a decent backup point guard, but little more. If you're looking for a replacement for Stockton, then you don't want to waste time with a career backup, so I will not fault the Jazz at all for passing on Watson.

Raul Lopez came over to the Jazz in 2002, but immediately needed surgery to repair his ACL and sat out that whole first season. He did eventually play 131 games with the Jazz, averaging 6.5 points and 3.8 assists per game (numbers that surprised me), before another injury ended his NBA career for good. It is completely unfair to blame Kevin O'Connor for Lopez's injuries. If he would have stayed healthy and become everything the scouts said he could've been, then O'Connor would be praised as a genius. I don't blame O'Connor for picking Lopez because of the injuries, but I do blame him for being content with a regressing Jazz roster. As long as Stockton and Malone were on the team, you knew Utah would be in the playoffs. But if you're going to be that good, then why not make some more immediate moves to try to be a bit better? I know O'Connor inherited a tough salary situation from Layden, but he's already demonstrated creativity with the four-team trade. To me, it looks like every move O'Connor made in 2001 said, "I'm just going to ride the next couple of seasons out and wait for the salaries to clear up before I attempt anything drastic." It really was kind of a painfully slow rebuilding process that didn't include lottery picks.

O'Connor's best move in 2001 was using the 52nd pick on Jarron Collins, who was easily the last relevant player in the draft. He played eight seasons with the Jazz, and his best year was his rookie year, where he averaged 6 points and 4 rebounds a game. He never put up good numbers like that again (partly because he had a major injury in his second season), but he stayed around by playing smart, setting screens and drawing charges. Everybody says he was a huge flopper, but I think he helped the Jazz out a lot without appearing on the box score. I remember Jeff Hornacek once said Adam Keefe was one of his favorite teammates because he set such good screens. It's necessary to have a player like that on your roster — someone who doesn't care about numbers, but gets things done, anyway.

After the draft, O'Connor sought to replace Olden Polynice with "scoring center" John Amaechi. I must admit that I do feel a little guilty about this one. When my friend and I heard the Jazz were targeting Amaechi, we both became very excited because we remembered (as O'Connor did) how Amaechi once scored 24 points against the Jazz. He seemed like the missing piece we needed — a center who could knock down mid-range jumpers. So my friend and I found John Amaechi's website (a strange site where he pleaded with his fans to talk to him about poetry and literature instead of basketball), and we sent him an email begging him to come to Utah. I don't know how much a random email from a kid influenced Amaechi's decision (most likely it was O'Connor's offer of $2 million a year for three years), but he did come to Utah. Unfortunately, it quickly became evident that Amaechi had absolutely no interest in being a good basketball player. It was just something he begrudgingly did because he was tall and just good enough to make a couple of million dollars a year. If you look up apathy in the dictionary, you'll see a picture of John Amaechi in a Jazz uniform. He made Greg Ostertag look like Karl Malone. I really don't know how O'Connor failed to see Amaechi's apathy or his lack of rebounding or his lack of defense. It's one thing for an excited 14-year-old to miss these things, but for an NBA general manager? O'Connor really does not get enough blame for this signing.

The 2001-02 season was rather turbulent for the Jazz. Karl Malone and John Stockton were both solid as always, but were beginning to show their ages more than ever. Malone averaged 22.4 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 4.3 apg, and 1.9 spg. The 39-year-old Stockton put up 13.4 ppg, 8.2 apg, and 1.9 spg. However, injuries seemed to hamper every other Jazz player that year. Donyell Marshall averaged 14.8 ppg and 7.8 rpg, but only played in 58 games. Bryon Russell played in 66 games, averaging just 9.6 points per game, proving once and for all that he wouldn't be the Jazz leader after Stockton and Malone, let alone a reliable shooting guard alongside them. John Starks, who had a cancerous testicle removed during the Dallas series in 2001, was suddenly a complete non factor. (I could say he was half the man he used to be, but that would just be mean.) For some reason, Greg Ostertag had his worst season to date, and that combined with Amaechi's gross incompetence, left Collins as the default starting center. John Crotty was actually having the best year of his career as Stockton's backup (6.9 ppg), until an injury ended his season after just 41 games, forcing the Jazz to sign Rusty LaRue, who did put up a decent 5.8 ppg. The biggest bright spot was Kirilenko, who averaged 10.7 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 1.9 bpg and 1.4 spg. He was everything we were hoping for, and we were quite excited to see him have a long, long career with the Jazz. One other small bright spot was Scott Padgett finally developing into something, scoring 6.7 ppg. But DeShawn Stevenson continued to fail to contribute anything worthwhile, while Quincy Lewis contributed much less.

Utah started the season 1-4, and didn't reach .500 until Game 30 with 15-15 record. This was also the Olympics season, meaning the Jazz had to take a nine-game road trip during February, during which they surprisingly went 6-3. The Jazz eventually limped to a 44-38 record, their worst since 1987 when Frank Layden was still coach. In the first round of the playoffs, a hot Sacramento team crushed the Jazz in four games, winning the last two in the Delta Center. Looking at the sad state of the Kings now, I realize I miss hating that old team with Mike Bibby, Doug Christie, Peja Stojakovic, Chris Webber, and especially Vlade Divac. My brother hated Divac so much, he would hiss and gag every time his name was mentioned. No that Kings team was not classy at all, but it was kind of fun to hate someone other than the Lakers. Of course, it did become difficult when the Kings played the Lakers; then it became a matter of picking a lesser of two evils.

So to recap, the Jazz really did have a terrible 2001-02 season, caused by age, injuries, and an over-reliance on role players like Marshall, Russell, Stevenson, Starks and Amaechi, who all were disappointment to some degree. I don't think Lopez was O'Connor's biggest blunder, but I do blame him for being unable/unwilling to make major adjustments to a Jazz roster that was quickly sliding downhill.

Stay tuned for Part 4: Stockton and Malone's final season!

Is Kevin O'Connor a good GM? Part 2

So the Jazz celebrated their overachieving year by getting swept out of the playoffs and will possibly find themselves without a first round pick on draft night. While there are many people to blame for the crushing defeats (the coach and players, mostly), the burden of improving Utah's roster for next year largely falls on the shoulders of general manager Kevin O'Connor. He's been running the Jazz for 13 years now (a rather long time for GMs), and the question remains — is Kevin O'Connor a good GM? Such a simple question requires a complex answer, which I will attempt to do in 13 parts. Today, Part 2: O'Connor's second season with the Jazz and his first draft.

Season 2: 2000-01

Because of a previous trade, the Jazz had two first round picks in the 2000 draft, their own (No. 26) and Miami's (No. 23). Somehow, O'Connor was able to trade the 26th pick to Denver for their 2001 first round pick. It feels like I'm missing some details here, like if the pick was protected and if the Jazz had to give up "cash considerations." In any case, this was a pretty good trade. Utah didn't need the pick and Denver's had a good chance of being pretty high.

(Quick disclaimer: I know it is completely unfair to look back at drafts and say, "They should have picked him." Anything and everything has happened in the draft and the highest-regarded scouts and GMs can barely get it right. I don't want to come off as being too critical here, but I am going to try to return to the thought process of the time to understand why certain players were drafted when they were. Then, just for hypothetical fun, I'll look at the possibilities of what could have happened instead.)

The 2000 draft is widely considered the worst draft in the lottery era. Kenyon Martin was the first pick, with Stromile Swift at No. 2, and Darius Miles No. 3. Only three players in the whole draft made it to an All-Star game, and only one was named to an All-NBA team (Michael Redd to the 2004 Third Team). Looking through this draft, there are just a lot of players who make you say, "ughh." Not all of them were bad, just the best of them only wound up being fairly decent role players.

For the Jazz, their top priority was filling the hole left by Jeff Hornacek after he retired. However, O'Connor felt they could get a veteran free agent to immediately step in to those minutes, allowing Utah to take a gamble with the 23rd pick. The roster was mostly the same from the previous 55-win season, so it felt fairly reasonable to bring in a project and allow him to develop over a couple of years. So with the 23rd pick in the 2000 NBA Draft, the Utah Jazz selected DeShawn Stevenson, an athletic shooting guard straight from high school.

As a 13-year-old Jazz fan, I was very excited with this pick. As much as I loved watching Stockton and Malone methodically beating opponents, I craved for a player who could do what Vince Carter could do — someone who could leap, soar, and dunk. DeShawn could do that, but little else during his career with the Jazz. He did go to the dunk contest one year, but he lost (mainly because his attempted dunk over Bryon Russell didn't work out). He'd occasionally have some nice in-game moments (usually alley-oops), but he never developed into the player the Jazz wanted him to. And his biggest problem, perhaps, was that he simply didn't fit in with the Jazz roster. This was a very veteran team with only a couple of token rookies who played very little. This was also a conservative team that matched its conservative fan base, that didn't appreciate it when players got into trouble with the law. The night he was drafted, DeShawn got into a fight that had to be stopped by the police. I also believe he had a few other brushes with law while in Utah and may have been accused of having sexual relations with a minor or something like that. Anyway, this draft pick never did really work out for the Jazz. Later, DeShawn grew a beard and a mohawk, got a tattoo of a $5 bill on his throat, and re-invented himself into a tough defender/enforcer guy. He played some pretty good defense on LeBron James last year and even won a championship ring. (Isn't it interesting how DeShawn got a ring and Stockton and Malone didn't?) Sadly, he never really played any defense with the Jazz. While it was refreshing to see Utah take such a gamble on a draft pick, O'Connor probably could have done better.

The four immediate picks after Stevenson were disappointing foreign centers — Dalibor Bagaric, Jake Tsakalidis, Mamadou N'Diaye and Primoz Brezec. I don't think any one of them would have helped solve Utah's Ostertag woes, so O'Connor was smart for passing up on all of them. The last two picks in the first round were point guard Erick Barkley and Mormon power forward Mark Madsen. Neither really amounted to anything (Madsen is best known for dancing on the Lakers bench), but I think Madsen would have been an interesting pick for the Jazz. He probably could have filled an Adam Keefe role and may have won over the crowd with his energy, hustle, heart and religion. Oh well. A couple of interesting picks in the second round were Marko Jaric, Eddie House, Eduardo Najero, Hanno Mottola from the Utes, and Brian Cardinal.

But the biggest oversight of the draft was Michael Redd, who Milwaukee scooped up with the 43rd pick. I've been looking for a long time, but I really can't find an adequate explanation for why every team in the NBA passed up on Redd at least once. Perhaps they felt he wasn't athletic enough, perhaps they foresaw his career-altering injuries eight years in the future. Perhaps they were concerned with how his scoring went down in each of his seasons at Ohio State. (In his freshman year, he averaged 21.9 ppg, 19.5 his sophomore year, and 17.3 as a junior.) Regardless, at his peak, Redd averaged 25 points per game and was an All-Star and Olympian. To make matters worse, he scored a career-high 57 points against the Jazz. He is also a devout Christian. The first thing he did after signing his max deal with the Bucks was build a church in his hometown. I think he would have fit in Utah quite nicely. So let's compare. On one hand, we have the athletic, unproven, trouble-making guard straight out of high school; on the other, we have the sharp-shooting, religious Ohio State junior. When you're looking to replace your franchise's best shooting guard ever, I would have gone with the safer bet of Michael Redd.

With the 50th pick, the Jazz drafted Idaho senior Kaniel Dickens, who never did play for Utah. There wasn't anyone of interest picked after him, so no loss there.

After the draft, O'Connor brought in the veteran 2-guard he wanted, John Starks. Starks was a legend with the Knicks during the '90s, but by the time he came to Utah, those days were long gone. Entering his 12th season, Starks could no longer dunk over opponents or shut them down with stifling defense. His streaky shooting was also a far cry from Hornacek's consistency. In Starks' first year with the Jazz, he averaged 9 points per game, while shooting less than 40 percent from the field. In his second year, he was hampered by testicular cancer (if I remember correctly) and was rendered virtually useless. While O'Connor can't be completely blamed for the fall of Starks, I can't help but wonder if he could have found someone younger who could have done better.

Speaking of ancient legends, O'Connor's next move was to replace Armen Gilliam with Danny Manning, best known for being a former No. 1 overall pick. Manning suffered a terrible injury during his season in the NBA, and apparently never quite was the same after that. He did, however, manage to have a fairly decent career, even averaging 20 points a game for a while with the Clippers. In 2000, he played his 13th season with the Jazz, and managed to play in all 82 games, scoring 7 ppg, but collecting a surprisingly low 2.6 rebounds per game. I suppose it was a rather trendy thing at this time for aging NBA forwards to come to Utah to back up Karl Malone for a season. Manning was OK, but it was always depressing whenever he came onto the court because the announcers would talk forever about how good he used to be and how he never lived up to his potential.

O'Connor mostly built this roster around the goal to continue to surround Stockton and Malone with experienced players. The premise, I assume, was that veteran players would provide an experienced competitive edge in the playoffs. But in 2000, O'Connor also began to slowly plan for the future while trying to stick the old veteran plan. The first sign of this was drafting Stevenson, the second, was his participation in the first-ever four team trade. It was enormously complex, so I'll just focus on what the Jazz gave up and got back. The Jazz gave up Howard Eisley, Adam Keefe and Denver's 2001 pick for Donyell Marshall and Bruno Sundov. It was sad to see Jazz mainstays Eisley and Keefe leave, but Eisley's usefulness had just about ended and Keefe should have retired two years earlier. Denver's pick ended up being No. 11, which Boston kind of wasted on Kedrick Brown. Sundov was waived by the Jazz almost before the trade was finalized, so the only prize for Utah was Donyell Marshall. My 13-year-old self loved Marshall, mainly for his cool cornrows, but also because he could score, rebound, block shots and shoot the occasional 3. He only played two years with the Jazz, averaging about 14 points and 7 rebounds each year, and I'm not really sure why he left Utah. Maybe it was because the Jazz could never really figure out what to do with him. He was too good to just back up Malone, but if you wanted to play him alongside the Mailman, then you'd have to bench Bryon Russell, who was still in his prime. Sloan later tried playing Russell at the 2 and Marshall at the 3, but that never really seemed to work quite the way it should have. Maybe it would have been better had Marshall been more adept from 3-point range. He only shot about 30 percent from 3 with Utah, but later upped his percentage to 40 and spent his last few years doing nothing but shoot 3s. He even once tied an NBA record with 12 3-pointers in a game. But without that refined skill, his Utah days were defined by a forward to big to be small and too small to be big. I appreciate O'Connor's boldness in acquiring Marshall, but he did very little to shake up the Jazz roster short term or long term.

With the exception of Marshall, the 2000-01 Jazz roster looked very similar to the previous year's. Karl Malone still led the way with 23.2 ppg, 8.3 rpg, and 4.5 apg. John Stockton put up 11.5 ppg, 8.7 apg, and 1.6 spg. Bryon Russell averaged 12 points per game, while Olden Polynice and Greg Ostertag continued their two-bad-centers-equal-one-good-center approach by combining for 9.8 ppg, 9.8 rpg, and 2.8 bpg. Although Polynice did set a personal best free throw percentage of .262. Young guys Quincy Lewis and Scott Padgett stayed on in severely limited roles, while filling out the roster were two nostalgic former Jazzmen — David Benoit and John Crotty. I don't remember either of their stints with the Jazz in the early '90s, but I do remember John Crotty in his later years. Maybe it was mostly because of his super-goofy shot, but also because I think he tried a little harder than most other players.

With such a similar roster, the Jazz finished with a very similar record, 53-29. But unlike the previous season, Utah did not advance to the second round, being shocked by a young Dallas team, despite owning home court advantage. Led by Michael Finley, Juwan Howard, Steve Nash, and Dirk Nowtizki (whom I referred to as Dirty Dirk at the time), the Mavs stunned the Jazz in Game 5 with a one-point win in the Delta Center. I seem to remember Calvin Booth hitting a huge shot and Karl Malone missing a rather routine jumper that could have won the game. This loss was particularly devastating to me because it was the first time I realized Stockton and Malone were mortal. They wouldn't be able to keep cranking out 50-win seasons forever, and eventually the would retire and the Jazz would inevitably end their impressive playoff streak. I didn't want to admit it at the time, but I did realize it, and I think everybody else did, too. How did Kevin O'Connor respond to this saddening realization? Find out in Part 3 of "Is Kevin O'Connor a good GM?"!

Is Kevin O'Connor a good GM?

This was the first image that came up for Utah Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor, and this is the typical expression you'll see him in — disgruntled, harassed, and generally unhappy-looking. O'Connor really does have a difficult job. He has to try to create the best Jazz team while trying to appease owner Greg Miller, coach Tyrone Corbin, and thousands of fans, many of whom know absolutely nothing. But it's these fans who pay his salary, and lately, there has been some wondering if he really is that good of a GM. This has inspired me to give a thorough season-by-season examination of O'Connor's 13-year career as general manager of the Jazz.

After Scott Layden left the Jazz to be the GM of the Knicks in 1999, former Jazz scout Kevin O'Connor took over for Utah, who had previously worked as the director of player personnel for the Philadelphia 76ers. In 13 years at the Jazz GM, O'Connor has seen Utah make it to the playoffs nine times and win three division titles. Only one current general manager has had a longer run with his team — Geoff Petrie, who has been Sacramento's GM for 17 years, a span that included nine playoff appearances and two division titles. In one sense, O'Connor has done a better job than Petrie, although he was twice named Executive of the Year, while O'Connor has never won that award. In any case, it is rather impressive that O'Connor has stayed around for so long, and has overseen the transition from the Stockton-Malone era to the short-lived Boozer-Williams era to today's Millsap? era. I know it's going to be very rather unfair to grade O'Connor's performance with the benefit of hindsight, but I do think it will be quite interesting to take a look at every major move he's made and playfully theorize what could have been. Will I ever be able to really determine how good of a GM Kevin O'Connor is? Probably not, but I hope you come along with me for the ride through recent Jazz history.

Season 1: 1999-2000

According to HoopsHype.com, O'Connor's first official act as Jazz GM was signing aging center Olden Polynice. Because of Greg Ostertag's continued (and infuriating) inconsistency, the Jazz needed another center to split time with him. Veteran Polynice seemed like a good idea. He was 7-feet tall, could rebound, block shots, and hopefully score a little. His best year was 1993-94, where he averaged just under 12 points and 12 rebounds a game while splitting time between the 20-win Pistons and the 28-win Kings. In fact, Polynice had a long history of putting up decent numbers on horrendous teams. By the time he came to the Jazz, he was entering his 13th season and didn't have the stamina to play more than 22 minutes a game. But he did appear in all 82 games and started in 79. He averaged about 5 points, 5 rebounds and 1 block each game, while shooting a comically abysmal 31 percent from the foul line. And that was after he got laser eye surgery! And perhaps the worst thing about him was his well-publicized incident where he impersonated a police officer.

Was this a good signing? He did put up basically the same numbers as Ostertag for less than half the price (Polynice made $2 million his first year, while Big O was paid $5.2 million). But I can't help thinking the Jazz were expecting (and needing) O.P. to score a bit more. They certainly were expecting him to make more than a third of his foul shots. But then again, I don't know who else O'Connor could have signed instead of Polynice. The Jazz were a veteran team in 1999, and they wanted to bring in more experienced veterans to extend any playoff runs Stockton and Malone could still have in them. Polynice definitely was an experienced veteran, but he didn't have much playoff experience (22 games in 12 years). This was not a horrible move, but I do think O'Connor should have been able to find someone better.

O'Connor's next big move was re-signing John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek. No matter how you look at it, this was a necessary, and a great move. Stockton and Hornacek meant so much to the Jazz, they had to finish their careers in Utah. Plus, they were still pretty effective in 1999. Stockton averaged 12 ppg, 8.6 apg, and 1.7 spg, while Hornacek scored 12.4 ppg with shooting averages of 49 percent from the field, 48 percent from 3, and 95 percent from the line. I guess Hornacek made up for Polynice's free throw failures. Anyway, imagining a scenario where those could still play like that but not on the Jazz would have been a tragedy, so let's give credit to O'Connor (even though it was a no-brainer).

The 1999-2000 Jazz team relied on a veteran eight-man rotation. Leading the way as always was Karl Malone, averaging 25.5 ppg, 9.5 rpg, 3.7 apg, 1.0 spg, and 0.9 bpg, while shooting 50 percent from the field and just a hair under 80 percent from the foul line. Did I mention he was 36 years old? (Quick tangent: Tim Duncan just turned 36 and is averaging 15 points and 9 rebounds per game. Just saying.) Right behind Malone was Bryon Russell at his best, averaging 14 ppg, 5 rpg, and 1.7 spg. Rounding out the starting lineup were Stockton, Hornacek, and Polynice, whom I've already talked about. The sixth man this year was Howard Eisley, putting up 8.6 ppg and 4.2 apg, while the very old Armen Gilliam provided 6.7 ppg and 4.2 rpg off the bench. And then Greg Ostertag was pretty much a Polynice clone. If you combined the two Jazz centers, you'd get one pretty good one that averaged 9.8 ppg, 11.5 rpg, and 3.1 bpg. Unfortunately, they were two separate, underachieving players.

Filling out the Jazz roster were rookies Quincy Lewis and Scott Padgett, third point guard Jacque Vaughn, journeyman Pete Chilcutt, and Adam Keefe, who was sadly and painfully on his last legs. The Jazz went 55-27 and won the Midwest Division title. But after sneaking by Seattle in the first round, the Jazz were crushed in five games by Portland. The sharp-shooting of Steve Smith, the all-around play of Scottie Pippen, and the dominance of big men Arvydas Sabonis, Rasheed Wallace, and Brian Grant put a sad end to Utah's season. It ended up being the last time Stockton and Malone made it to the second round.

So overall, I think Kevin O'Connor did fairly well his first season. He didn't do much, but he didn't need to. The Jazz were old, but still competitive, and O'Connor kept them that way. I honestly don't think a return to the Finals was a realistic goal for this season, but I think a 55-win, 2nd-round appearance is rather successful. As a fan, I do remember fondly watching these last few moments of Stockton, Malone and Hornacek together. Not that O'Connor really deserves much credit (good or bad) for this year. He was just kind of there.

Stay tuned for my examination of Kevin O'Connor's role in the 2000-01 season.

Superman Returns

Superman IV was so bad that it took nearly 20 years for anyone to make another Superman movie. There were many ideas and attempts, including a Superman/Batman crossover, and one directed by Tim Burton, but everything fell through until director Bryan Singer finished up the first two X-Men movies and switched over to DC. Superman Returns came out in 2006, 19 years after the last Superman movie, and stars Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, and Kevin Spacey. Singer's main goal was to create the perfect sequel to Richard Donner's Superman and pretend that the third and fourth movies never happened, which I think is a good idea for all of us.

This movie really is a loving tribute to the first Superman movie, and you can tell right from the beginning with John Williams' theme blaring, a Marlon Brando monologue, and the sweeping opening credits in space. It really captures the same majesty of the first film. I was so happy they brought in the Marlon Brando archives, and I also have to commend John Ottman's work on the soundtrack. He used John Williams' theme prominently, as he should have, but his own original music was also the perfect complement to it. I'll add a point for that.

I'll add another point for Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. He was the perfect modernization of Gene Hackman's character. Yes, he did have the same little quirks and a weakness for stupid girlfriends who were really good, but he finally replaced bumbling Otis with some real, violent henchmen. I also liked how he has embraced his baldness. The wigs are still there, but mainly for disguises now, which I like. It was also a good modern twist to have him "escape" from jail through legal finagling and loopholes, and regain his fortune by swindling an old woman out of hers. But most of all, I loved how this Lex was so evil. He is no longer content with exposing Superman to Kryptonite and destroying California; now, he is jabbing shards of Kryptonite into Superman's back and destroying America. He really was a wonderful villain.

The score will rise to an 8 for some brief, yet poignant scenes of Clark returning to his Smallville farm. Martha Kent is still alive and an important support system for Superman. We also got a great flashback that I think should have been in the first movie. It was a young Clark running through cornfields, jumping as high as he can, when he accidentally learns he can fly. While the CGI in this scene shows more now than it did six years ago, it is still a beautiful scene thanks to the music, lighting and overall emotion of unbridled joy.

I'll add another point for Kate Bosworth's performance as Lois Lane. I was never a fan of Margot Kidder, who came off as annoying and incompetent. This Lois is neither. She is strong, focused, successful, and a relentless reporter. She is also actually pretty! This is the first Superman movie where I can see why Superman would be attracted to her. She also earns bonus points for being able to keep going strong during the five years Superman ditched her. More on that later.

The score rises to a 10 for one of the most epic scenes in all superhero movies — Superman saving the plane. It was just so exciting and compelling; Superman really is at his best when stopping "natural" disasters. We know Superman is fast and strong and invincible, but how could he stop something that big? I also loved the twist of him accidentally ripping a wing off. I really am on the edge of seat every time I watch this. There also is no better way to announce your return than landing a plane full of reporters onto a major league baseball field in the middle of a game. And then the nice touch of allowing Superman and us to pause and take in what just happened while the John Williams theme blasts its majestic sound of approval and thousands of people give the hero a standing ovation. I almost want to put the movie back on just to watch this part again.

I'll also add another point for Superman's "first night" back on patrol around the world. We got to see him stop a lot of crimes everywhere, which I really like. Superman wouldn't just protect Metropolis. He can and will help everyone everywhere. There is a really cool part where we see him literally fly faster than a speeding bullet, take a full round from a machine gun to his chest, and be shot point blank in his eye. The bullet crushes on his eyeball and falls to the ground. Is that making Superman too strong? Yes. But that's the point with Superman. He is the strongest and the best. He is the ideal, the perfect example to look up to.

Having just said that, it really doesn't make any sense why Superman, who called himself a savior of the world, would leave Earth for five years. Some astronomers thought they found Krypton. Yeah ... so? Superman never gives an adequate explanation for his disappearance, and as the movie goes on and more things are revealed, things look only worse for our ideal hero. I'll take off one point here, with more deductions to come.

Lex Luthor confirms what we've been fearing for most of the movie, that Lois' son, Jason, is actually Superman's illegitimate son. Superman CAN'T have a son outside of marriage! He just can't! The world's greatest hero would never be so irresponsible! Again, I'll take off one point here, with more deductions to follow.

The score falls to an 8 for the terrible character of Jason White. It's bad enough that he existed, but he was super annoying. He simultaneously acted younger and older than a 5-year-old. He was really smart, understood the concept of trespassing, and could play the piano fairly well, but he couldn't pronounce the letter R and always called his parents mommy and daddy. He was also "fragile" with asthma and a host of other maladies. Also, what was with his hair? Lois, get your kid a haircut!

I will give a point back for the initial "death" and "resurrection" scene of Superman. I loved Lex and his boys slowly and mercilessly beating up Superman and viciously thrusting the Kryptonite into his back. It was so dark, tragic, and evil. Then after he was rescued, he was able to fly above the clouds and into the sunshine. I loved the contrast of light and attitude. This was simply a beautiful scene.

After Superman finally beats Luthor, he "dies"again. This wasn't so bad, but then he was brought back to life by a kiss from his illegitimate son. Not only did this make little sense, it was a further reminder that Superman had an illegitimate son! Yes, it is that bad! Also, little Jason has vague, latent powers. Every scene with Jason just made me angrier. We're down to an 8.

This really was a good movie and was a loving tribute to Richard Donner's work. For the most part, it captured the same magic and religious feel that he strove for. Brandon Routh did a good job playing Christopher Reeve and Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey were both a bit better than their counterparts. The story and action were great. But when things slowed down at the end of the movie and the exciting Superman buzz wore off, a lot of questions began to arise. When Superman visited a sleeping Jason, everything started to come together. In Superman II, Superman becomes a normal human and sleeps with Lois Lane. He then regains his super powers to defeat General Zod, and although he promised not to let the world down again (seeing how everything collapsed in the two days he gave up), he decides to leave for Krypton because Lois gets pregnant. Poor Lois got left behind with this half-Kryptonian kid, but luckily found a good guy in James Marsden, so she didn't have to raise the kid alone. Then Superman comes back five years later and can't figure out why Lois is so mad at him! The more I think about this, the more mad I get. Perhaps a few of these issues would've been resolved in a sequel, but that possibility was killed because so many people were upset that Superman had a son! I have to take off yet another point for this. I know it seems like I'm penalizing this movie a lot for the same thing, but it was such a major thing that I feel it was necessary.

As much as I wanted a sequel for this film, I think it's for the best that the next Superman movie, to be called the Man of Steel, will move away from the Richard Donner version. It's time for a new take on the character. Mostly, I'm just glad Superman will be back on the big screen. The world needs Superman in theaters.

Final score: 7