Which is just what the Jazz did the last time Utah changed logos and colors, from the original Mardi Gras green, yellow and purple and Jazz note it brought with it from New Orleans to the stylized lettering and copper, light blue and purple of the recent uniforms. Utah went to the finals the next two seasons.

Haslam was cognizant of that — "It's a sign of good things to come" — and said the team actually had wanted to change last season to coincide with the very new and youthful look of its personnel, but it takes six to nine months to get colors and designs approved by the league and manufacturer, so this season became the target time. Fanzz stores president and Jazz senior v.p. Robert Hyde and senior v.p. of sales and marketing Jay Francis were at the forefront of picking the designs.

When the league shifted to Reebok last season, many teams began changing, partly at the request of the NBA and Reebok, which wanted its own look.

"It's appropriate now with the new team, new style, new colors," said Haslam, whose team still had three first-round draft picks to play with and expected to get a lot younger at the time he said it.

People always speculate that new looks are designed simply to sell more merchandise. Haslam said that's not necessarily right because there will be a lot of obsolete merchandise on the Jazz's hands now.

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E-mail: lham@desnews.com