Boozer's a no-go for opener

The Jazz will open the 2005-06 NBA season without their leading scorer from a season ago, would-be starting power forward Carlos Boozer.

Boozer re-injured his strained left hamstring during practice Monday, and on Tuesday coach Jerry Sloan said the Jazz will play the Dallas Mavericks tonight without him.

So be it, Sloan suggested.

"You'd rather have the best players," he said, "but sometimes you don't get that."

Tuesday's developments, however, could prove quite disconcerting for a team plagued by injuries in 2004-05. Those health woes, after all, weighed heavily on the Jazz's psyche throughout a 26-56 season.

"When you get so many injuries," Sloan said, "guys get their minds set, and it's pretty difficult to get in a positive manner."

Sloan, though, hopes that does not happen again.

"We," he said, "can't worry about those things."

Sloan does fret, though, over Boozer's individual circumstance.

"I think it's more disappointing to him. That's the thing," he said. "He's very disappointed. He worked very hard. He's worked as hard as anybody I've had to get himself in great shape, and to have these things happen to him is . . . very frustrating."

Boozer, who missed the final 31 games of last season with a strained foot, reported to training camp in early October looking in much-better shape than when he left in April.

He strained the hamstring at the tail end of the first week of camp, though, and missed all seven of Utah's preseason games.

Boozer had planned to scrimmage hard Monday and Tuesday, then play tonight.

It would have been his first game since last Feb. 14, when — amid a trying stretch of losses for the Jazz, and a public tiff with franchise owner Larry H. Miller regarding intensity and defensive effort — the foot problem arose.

Instead, Boozer, according to the Jazz, "tweaked" the hamstring Monday. It apparently happened during warm-up drills prior to scrimmage, when Boozer attempted to throw a lengthy pass.

"I guess that's why they call it 'day-by-day,' " he said. "One day it might be great, one day it might not be.