Expecting Jazz to be good, and then keep improving

Hi, Mr. Curmudgeon here. First night of the season, the Jazz pound the Lakers into Jell-O and what do I do?

I find something to complain about, naturally.

Call me a party pooper. Label me hard to please. Accuse me of looking for flies in the soup, if you must.

But mostly call me expectant. I'm expecting this year's Jazz to be good. Every day, in every way.

And I don't expect them to let teams back within 13 after leading by 25.

One game into the NBA season, I'm already starting to sound like George Steinbrenner.

While most of Jazzdom revels in the team's new look, its enthusiasm, its youth and maybe even its new blue-highlighted uniforms, I'm expecting more this year. I'm expecting 51 wins, a playoff spot and relentless play every night.

I'm expecting Andre Kirilenko's shot selection to keep improving and his impatience to decrease. I'm expecting Carlos Boozer to collect more garbage than the county landfill. That boyish Mehmet Okur look is going to lose his appeal if he isn't a drastic improvement over Greg Ostertag, too.

I'm expecting a great return on Larry H. Miller's $206 million off-season investment.

If that doesn't happen, I'm calling the waiter and sending this season back to the cook.

No way they can pass themselves off as an adorable bunch of over-achievers again. Last year was a cool wind after several years of decline. Kirilenko made his first all-star team. Carlos Arroyo became a real point guard, and Raja Bell became an enforcer.

In an off-season effort to improve, the Jazz forked over enough cash to buy Latvia. The team payroll for this season is almost $44 million. But that's only a fraction of the overall investment. Miller paid $70 million to secure Boozer, $86 million to keep Kirilenko and $50 million to sign Okur.

That's good money, even with the high price of gas.

Kirilenko nabbed a "max contract" — the most a player of his experience can earn. Boozer's $11 million this year is the kind of money John Stockton didn't see until he was 40.

Let's just say Okur is earning enough to buy every rug in Turkey.

So I'm anticipating great results. If you were CEO of a Fortune 500 company and being paid millions, would the company expect high returns?

Of course it would.

It would almost expect perfection.

For the most part, the Jazz were close to that on Wednesday.

They were aggressive, active, alert. They built a 20-point lead in the first half, stretched it to 25 in the third quarter. Though it dissolved to 13 in the fourth quarter, they built it back up before the finish.