So the Jazz aren't looking for a shooting guard at this week's NBA Draft, just the "best player available," according to Kevin O'Connor and Jerry Sloan.

I don't believe it, and I hope the Jazz brass aren't serious when they say it.

Sure, if Kevin Durrant falls to No. 25, the Jazz aren't going to pass him up just because they have Carlos Boozer already. But the one thing the Jazz need to do for next season, besides put a smile on Andrei Kirilenko's face, is to upgrade their off-guard position.

With Deron Williams becoming one of the top point guards in the league, and Carlos Boozer showing he's one of the top power forwards when he's healthy, the Jazz are set at those positions for the foreseeable future.

Although Mehmet Okur isn't your prototypical center, he's a great scorer, a decent rebounder and, as he showed during the San Antonio series, he can be a pretty good defender. At the small forward the Jazz have Kirilenko and Matt Harpring.

That leaves shooting guard, where the Jazz try to get by with Gordan Giricek, Derek Fisher, Ronnie Brewer and C.J. Miles. Giricek and Fisher are good shooters but can be liabilities on defense. Brewer has the size and potential to be a good defender but is an inconsistent shooter. Miles is a good shooter but still young and needs work in his body and defense.

The Jazz have already brought in the likes of Wisconsin's Alando Tucker, Rice's Morris Almond, UCLA's Arron Afflalo, Ohio State's Daequan Cook, Jackson State's Trey Johnson and Keith Simmons of Holy Cross.

Other names being bandied about include Eastern Washington's Rodney Stuckey, Italy's Marco Belinelli, Vanderbilt's Derrick Byars, USC's Gabe Pruitt, DePaul's Wilson Chandler and Spain's Rudy Fernandez.

Nothing against foreign players but I hope the Jazz don't go in that direction. They already have their quota of foreign players and don't need another unless it's Manu Ginobli Jr.

Tucker may be available at No. 25 and has great credentials as the Big Ten player of the year last year (over Greg Oden). He's known as a player who can go to the hoop, has a large wingspan and is a good defensive player. But it seems like the Jazz already have that player in Brewer.

Stuckey is a similar player who is a better scorer, getting a lot of points from his mid-range game. However, his 3-point shooting — 26.7 percent last year — scares me.

Belinelli is supposed to be a good 3-point shooter but also streaky. Plus at 6-foot-6, 200 pounds he's kind of skinny.

Byars was the SEC player of the year, has solid all-around stats but at 6-7 is more of a small forward and reportedly doesn't handle the ball well.

Almond would be my first pick, considering that he has four years of college experience, shoots 85 percent from the foul line and has shot a percentage in the mid-40s from 3-point range throughout his collegiate career.

There are some questions about his defensive ability, although I'd rather have a 6-6 Almond going against the likes of Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant than a barely 6-foot Fisher. Plus, defense is easier to teach than shooting, as the Jazz have found out with Kirilenko's lack of shooting progress.

The problem is that Almond may not last until No. 25 with teams such as Philadelphia, Charlotte and New York also looking at shooting guards.

So if the Jazz can't find a good-sized, sharp-shooting guard like Almond, maybe they should, uh, just go with the best player available on Thursday.

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E-mail: sor@desnews.com