IN THE HISTORY of Jazz basketball, there was never a regular season to compare. It was the kind of year 11-year-olds dream up when they're thinking big. A year in which John Stockton became the all-time assist leader and Karl Malone and Tom Chambers reached 20,000 career points. A year that featured a franchise-high 60 regular season games and set a franchise record for road wins (27).
A year for remembering.It all ended abruptly with a loss, Sunday, eliminating them from the playoffs in the first round. The party was over before it really got going. The Jazz had the bewildered, exasperated look of someone who flunked their driving test: What happened? What the Jazz will remember about this season, though, won't be the records or the wins. "I can look back 20 years from now and I think what I'll remember most is the 12 guys in this room," said Karl Malone, minutes after the Jazz season ended. "In the past, we had guys here who I didn't care if I ever hear from in 20 years. These are guys I look forward to seeing again next year."
Unfortunately for the Mailman, the team that made franchise history won't be intact when next year comes. Antoine Carr, Tom Chambers, John Crotty and James Donaldson are free agents. Bryon Russell will undoubtedly be left unprotected in the expansion draft.
Even if the Jazz make no trades, five of the team's 12 players could be somewhere else by next season. Chambers and Donaldson could be retired. Crotty could be, say, backing up Anfernee Hardaway in Orlando. Antoine Carr could go for more money and find himself woofing with fans in Toronto.
And when they leave, it will change the makeup - physical, mental and emotional - of the team. The same makeup that Malone says made it a year he enjoyed more than any other.
Which brings us to the question of whether the Jazz can come back and have the same type of season next year, and if there is still time to win a championship during the Stockton-Malone era. The answer is: not likely or you-gotta-be-kidding.
This was their year."We were talking in the locker room and we decided, the Jazz have got to be one of the three best teams in the league this year," said Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich.
Though perhaps over-rated qualities, chemistry and team unity are nonetheless hard to come by. The Jazz excel at them better than most, perhaps any team in the NBA. But in a league subject to egos and indifference, player moves and salary caps, keeping things status quo from year to year is virtually impossible.
In the early 1990s, Portland was the sleek new franchise of the future. The Blazers had All-Stars in Terry Porter and Clyde Drexler, a scoring center in Kevin Duckworth, a dangerous and athletic small forward in Jerome Kersey and a rugged defensive specialist in Buck Williams. The Blazers went to the NBA Finals twice in three years and it seemed only a matter of time until they won a championship.
But by 1993 they'd become only the third-best team in the Pacific Division. This year they finished seventh in the West and won only 44 games. Drexler was in Houston, Duckworth in Washington and the rest were on a Portland team that was eliminated easily by the Suns in the first round of the playoffs. The proverbial "window of opportunity" has long-since shut on the Blazers.
The Jazz's could see their hopes shrivel as quickly. Though Felton Spencer is due to return from his injury around January, what they do for a center until then will be high entertainment. When Spencer does return, it will take weeks to play himself back into his normal form.
Malone and Stockton may well continue at their high level of play for several years. But they've missed only eight games between them in 11 seasons. How long their luck holds before an injury takes one of them out for an extended period is anyone's guess.
The Jazz are already one of the oldest teams in the NBA. Carr will be 34 this summer, Malone 32. Stockton is 33, Jeff Hornacek 32. Donaldson will be 38 and Chambers 36 next year. Time and the chance to win an NBA championship waits for no man.
Even if Stockton, Malone and Hornacek continue at their remarkable level, key players around them will likely have changed or diminished by next year. Even with minimal shuffling in the off-season, the elusive chemistry that glued this year's team together will probably have changed, as well.
The Jazz aren't in danger of missing the playoffs in the near future or turning into the L.A. Clippers of the Midwest Division. They won't be playing to half-empty arenas or tanking games late in the year in hopes of getting into the lottery. Certainly as long as Malone and Stockton are the foundation of the team, the Jazz will be a dangerous and determined team.
Nevertheless, their best chance ever to make the NBA Finals is over. They'll remember this as a year of rare unity, but also as the year their chance got away.
The kind of year that won't come around again anytime soon.