Miskiri aims to pad his lone NBA stat

The sum of Jazz hopeful Jason Miskiri's NBA career amounts to a single digit.

It's the grand total of NBA regular-season games in which Miskiri has played since leaving George Mason University in 1999.

It's the loneliest number.

It's one.

That's right: The Guyana-born guard is in the record books, thanks to a solitary game.

He actually stuck on the Charlotte Hornets' active roster for about a month back in that first fall following college but took the floor just once.

The date was Nov. 2, 1999. Charlotte beat Orlando 100-86 in its season-opener, at home. Miskiri's line was largely nondescript.

Three minutes played. Two fouls committed. One assist dished. Zero points scored.

"It seems like a long time ago," Miskiri said.

Perhaps that is because it was.

Since then, the Hornets have moved to New Orleans, Charlotte was awarded a new NBA franchise nicknamed the Bobcats and Miskiri's professional life has been a big bowl of alphabet soup: CBA. IBL. ABA. NBDL.

In Scrabble, those tiles are worth 24 points.

In the game that is Miskiri's real world, it adds up to a bunch of working man's paychecks and not many nights living the NBA high-life.

From LaCrosse to Richmond, North Charleston to New Mexico, Miskiri has played in more minor-league locales than Dennis Rodman post-Michael Jordan.

Yet he's still at it, in training camp with the Jazz, hoping to turn one into two and three and four and more but prepared for the possibility his line in history will remain the same.

"When it's all over," said Miskiri, now 29, "that's when you say, 'Hey.'"

Until then, "I'm gonna still push and push. I'm never gonna give up. I'm gonna keep going."

No matter what obstacles must be overcome.

"It's tough," said Miskiri, who has potential opportunities overseas if things do not work out here. "But it's always been my dream to play on this level, and I feel that I can. If I didn't, then I wouldn't be here.

"I think that a lot of other people feel that I can, too," he added. "It's just timing, and being in the right situation."