He vowed during training camp that his play would be much-improved, and everyone figured yeah, sure, right, whatever.
Show us.Greg Ostertag is.
The Jazz's much-maligned center is backing up his quiet but self-assured preseason talk with regular-season play that, so far, proves maybe he really is a changed man. And it's a change for the good, one that is beginning to convert both non-believers and bashers from the past, including none other than a certain Mailman who is granting his stamp of approval.
"We're always quick to get on Greg about a lot of things," Karl Malone said. "But you have to give him credit, too."
Malone does, and went out of his way to do so after Ostertag, fresh from his first double-double of the season last Friday in Sacramento, pulled down 11 rebounds Monday in a 91-85 victory over the defending NBA-champion San Antonio Spurs.
So there you have it: The man who once publicly questioned the largess of Ostertag's hind side is phat-happy with Ostertag's play of late, much as he was pleased with the way Ostertag reported to training camp last month in tip-top- shape.
But it's not just Malone who likes what he sees of the Jazz's 7-foot-2 center.
It is also other teammates, and Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, and even a few of those common-man clowns who have mocked Ostertag as if he were a vacuum cleaner in the hands of a door-to-door salesman.
"I've had people drive by house and say, 'You suck,' "Ostertag said. "It doesn't bother me. I don't care. I'm in this to help my team out and play as well as I can."
Truth be told, though, there was a time when the brutality of certain detractors did prove bothersome. Life in Salt Lake City got downright ugly for Ostertag, so
much so that some wondered if the 1995 first-round draft choice out of the University of Kansas had lost his passion for the game.
Maybe just misplaced it, like keys under the couch cushion.
Even Ostertag has to wonder now if perhaps that was the case.
"I don't know if I lost it," he said. "I just think maybe there was a time when people were on me all the time, and I was like, 'What's the point?' You know, it's no fun going to practice, and walking the streets, and hearing people say, 'You suck,' and s--- like that. That was a time when it did bother me. But now I enjoy coming to practice every day, and now, when I walk down the street, and somebody drives up next to me, it's not 'You suck.' "
Now, the questions are more along the line of 'What is the difference?'
Ostertag, a starter two of the past three seasons, is coming off the bench, backing up Olden Polynice, and playing some of his best basketball since signing a six-year, $40-million contract that Sloan thinks is central to the big center's past woes.
"When he was making the money he was making the first year, it wasn't a big deal," Sloan said. "Once the money came around, it became a much bigger deal to other people."
But not to Sloan.
At least not so much so that he would consider giving up altogether on Ostertag, even in the worst of times.
"We still knew all along it was going to be a long, drawn-out process," Sloan said. "He had a lot of work to do, and he's got to continue. He's never going to be a guy that scores 25 points a game. It would be nice to have that, but he wasn't that kind of talent when he was drafted."
Rather, he was the kind who seemed quite capable of doing precisely what he is doing now: Pulling down some rebounds, blocking some shots, redirecting others, scoring now and then and filling a big hole in the middle.
Playing, it seems, with a passion for the game that has been lost in the loveseat.
"That's what it appears to me it is," Sloan said.
So, again, the question begs to be answered: What is the difference?
"I (attribute) it to my conditioning . . . you know, coming in shape and ready to play," said Ostertag, who committed himself to doing just that with an aggressive offseason training program. "That way, you don't get tired, you don't have people on you all the time. And you can play a lot more relaxed. That's a lot of it."
Physically, Ostertag is in the best shape of his professional life. Mentally, he is not far behind.
"It's the way I feel," he said. "When I'm on the court, I don't get tired. I'm able to go a lot longer, keep up the energy level and keep up the intensity."
No need to take a break, no need to take a foul "just so you can get that little breather."
Ostertag is getting up and down the floor better than in a long time. He is able to contribute on both ends, not just one or the other. He is dunking against the Spurs, and blocking a late-game Tim Duncan shot when San Antonio still had a shot at winning.
And it's all because Ostertag made a conscious decision to do more than vacation this past summer.
"It was time for me to settle down, and grow up, and be the player I know I can be," he said. "That goes back to the fact that people are not on your case all the time, and that goes to being ready to play."
Yet no matter how well he does, Ostertag also knows there are some for whom it will never be good enough.
"I'm going to always have critics," he said. "There's going to always be people who say s---- about me. But that . . . doesn't bother me.
"You know, everybody has their scapegoat. I just come out with the idea in my mind that as long as my teammates and coaches know they can count on me, that's all I care about."