GIRI-CHECK: Shooting guard Gordan Giricek says he's in pretty good shape after spending the last two months working out with and playing for his Croatian national team, which finished seventh in the Eurobasket 2005 championships that concluded a week ago.

"I won't say I'm in better shape than last year," he said, "but I am in good shape."

Giricek said that was likely his last season with the national team.

"They have young guys that can replace us," he said. "I want to spend summertime different than the last 10 years."

Most of those years, he was pretty tired by October after playing with a European club team and then the national team and, the last two years, in the NBA. But he had three months off after the Jazz season before going to the national team for just the Euro tournament, so he feels more rested and in shape.

Giricek finished fifth in the Eurobasket scoring with a 15.7-point average. Jazz teammate Andrei Kirilenko was third at 17.5, and led all rebounders with 11.8, but his Russian team fell to Croatia in the seventh-place game. Giricek also averaged 6.5 rebounds.

Yet "Gira" wasn't all that happy with himself.

"I was okay. I can do better than that," he said. "That's the way I am. I'm never satisfied. Scoring was okay. Rebounding was okay. But that was my role. We had a lot of young guys, so you have to show them the right way to play. You have to be the most aggressive guy on the team, and take everybody with you."

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