Lofty goals: This Jazz team wants to better last year's run

In theory, improving on what was accomplished last season doesn't merely mean winning more than 51 regular-season games, and it doesn't just mean winning a second straight Northwest Division championship.

Rather, it means advancing to the NBA Finals — which, if title-taking theory holds, would leave the Jazz just one step away from realizing an aspiration that their on-floor leader is not at all afraid to declare.

"We feel like with the people we've got here — the team we've got here, and the coaches we've got — that we should win a championship soon," point guard Deron Williams said. "That's our goal."

It is, which prompts the question of whether the expectation of a visit to the Finals in 2008 — based on a trip to the '07 Western Conference Finals, once which ended with a loss to the eventual-champion San Antonio Spurs — is a realistic one for Jazz fans to hold.

"I think so," Williams said. "How is it not?"

The question posed as it is, let us count the ways as we count down the days until Wednesday night's season opener at Golden State and Thursday's home opener against first-round playoff victim Houston.

One is that while they certainly were a one-hit wonder last season, this version of the Jazz — playoff absentees from 2004 through 2006 — do not yet have a proven record.

Another is that they should know postseason bracketing and early results like last year's — remember, second-round victim Golden State upset Dallas to help clear Utah's path to the conference finals — might not be so favorable in the future.

And then there is the reality that the Jazz are dealing now with multiple issues, not all of which burdened them — at least not publicly — a season ago.

Starting power forward Carlos Boozer, the team's leading scorer and rebounder last season, missed the first two weeks of training camp and the preseason because his 1-year-old son Carmani is battling the blood disorder sickle cell anemia back home in Miami.

The Jazz can only hope that the young boy's outlook continues to be bright, and that as a result Boozer's mind can remain on basketball.

Starting small forward Andrei Kirilenko, unhappy playing for demanding coach Jerry Sloan and frustrated by his reduced role in the Jazz offense, made known his desire to be traded shortly before training camp opened.

He suggests such talk is history now, but three weeks into October still hadn't said he's changed his mind.