Utah Jazz: Revue leaves youngsters far from satisfied

Could they push each other, play well on the court at the same time, make real bids to make the 2008-09 Jazz roster?

Now the Revue is done, and neither young man seems especially pleased with himself.

So both have apparently changed some of their plans for the rest of the summer to spend time working with other teammates for a week at Santa Barbara's Peak Performance Project that helped Rafael Araujo so much a few years ago, and both say they now will spend most of the rest of their time prior to fall training camp working in Salt Lake City.

Koufos, who has dual citizenship, had hoped to play with the Greek Olympic team in Beijing next month, but he said that, while he qualified to do so, he has decided against it.

"My name was on the roster. I'm actually very happy for them, but I'm not going to participate with them. This is very important for me. I've just got to work hard with the Utah Jazz," he said Friday night after the Jazz lost their final Revue game 82-70 to Dallas to finish their summer league with a 3-3 record. Dallas finished 4-2.

Koufos scored 14 points and had five boards and two blocked shots. For the tournament, Koufos was Utah's No. 2 scorer at 8.7 points and led the Jazz in rebounds with 34 for six games. He had six blocks.

Fesenko had 29 boards, 13 blocks and 4.5 points a game, but he was upset with himself Friday night — and apparently ready to do something about it.

"I am much better (than that)," Fesenko said. "I have problems. I need to figure them out, and I need to work more, and I will stay here — I will not go back to Ukraine — to work.

"I blew it this summer. It was a big summer for me, and I didn't play good."

Fesenko said he had expected to come in and play well. "I was hope that I will do at least, like, not so bad, but everything goes like it goes. I can do nothing. I have some problems. I need to figure out which ones, and I have to figure them."

Morris Almond, Utah's other 2007 draft choice, made the Revue's all-tournament team averaging 18.5 points while trying to work on his defense, especially Friday. "I didn"t want Gerald Green to light me up for 30. I tried to make a better effort on that end," he said about the Dallas third-year man who also made the all-tourney team, along with Acie Law IV of Atlanta, Anthony Randolph of Golden State and Revue MVP Anthony Morrow of Golden State, the top scorer at 23 points a game.

Almond scored 14 Friday after learning that the Jazz had retained the services of C. J. Miles, making it seemingly more difficult for the second-year Almond to find playing minutes with Utah.

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