Utah Jazz: Team not overconfident about preseason success

The Hall of Fame coach hopes to impress upon this year's team that one person – or even five guys – can't carry the Jazz's burden. It will take a team to win games and playoff series.

"You look at the Lakers and those teams that win championships; they have a lot of guys that are busting their butts for the team, not for themselves," Sloan said. "We can't make anybody do that. ... You have to have guys that's willing to pay the price and that's through hard work."

Jazz players realize that, too.

"We see our weaknesses and some of the things that we need to improve," new center Al Jefferson said. "But I really think that this is a great team. We have a chance to do something really special."

Through that hard work, of course.

"Sometimes we get in the game (and) we kind of don't run our offense as well as we should," Jefferson said. "We could always get better on defense. Just the little things that can be corrected."

Whether or not they do that will dictate if Sloan and Jazz fans like what they see when they finally know what kind of team they've got this season.

e-mail: jody@desnews.com Twitter: DJJazzyJody