Chicken Little can rest: Jazz's sky not falling

SALT LAKE CITY — What a difference a week makes.

Last Sunday in this space, we expressed our concerns about the incredible shrinking roster of the Utah Jazz. Free agent power forward Carlos Boozer, Utah's leading scorer and rebounder last season, received a fat contract from the Chicago Bulls and was outta here quicker than he could say "I know I'm gonna get a raise."

(And, at $15 million a year, darned if he wasn't right.)

Sharpshooter Kyle Korver signed with the Bulls, too, and starting shooting guard Wesley Matthews got a staggering offer from the Portland Trail Blazers, a ridiculous front-loaded deal ($9.2 million for the first year) which the fiscally responsible Jazz were wise not to match.

What's more, with starting center Mehmet Okur coming back from surgery for a torn Achilles tendon, Utah's roster was falling apart faster than confidence in the Obama administration.

The sky, it seemed, was falling on the Jazz franchise, and fans fretted out loud about what they feared would be the sure-fire demise of their beloved basketball team. If you paid any attention to all those nasty online comments, chat rooms, e-mails and callers to sports talk radio shows, then simply firing Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor would've been much too good for him. Some suggested firing all right — as in a firing squad — or at least the Chinese water torture.

Well, a week later, the sky is no longer falling in Jazzland. In fact, it's sunny and blue with nary a cloud in sight these days.

And O'Connor, by his own sly admission, looks a lot smarter than he did just a few days ago.

Funny how a shrewd trade and a free-agent acquisition can suddenly change a lot of people's minds, and their perspective about where the Jazz are headed.

With the blessing of the Miller family ownership, O'Connor pulled the trigger on a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves that brought big man Al Jefferson to the Jazz in exchange for two protected first-round draft picks and Kosta Koufos, who was terrific in this year's summer league but, quite frankly, hasn't shown much at the NBA level in his first couple years in the league.

Jefferson has three years remaining on his current contract and, at age 25, gives the Jazz a strong inside presence that will certainly soften Boozer's departure. Heck, in some ways, he might even be an upgrade over his selfish predecessor.

Then Utah chose to bring back swingman Raja Bell, a former Jazzman who actually likes to play hard on both ends of the floor — which makes him somewhat of a rare commodity in today's NBA.