Utah Jazz: Sloan slowed by surgery, eager to get back to work

An obviously frustrated Jerry Sloan is about two weeks behind his anticipated recovery schedule from knee-replacement surgery, a setback that on Monday he attributed largely to post-surgery blood clots.

The longtime Jazz head coach had his long-troublesome right knee replaced on April 30.

"I'm doing okay," he said after the team held a pair of pre-draft workout sessions. "I'm not gonna say (the knee) feels pretty good. That's a different lifestyle, when you have a new knee put in, it seems to me like. "It's been tough," he added when asked about the recovery process. "But that's what I expected. I didn't expect some of the things that came up in the process. That's the only problem."

Sloan said he was "disappointed" by the unexpected complications.

"That's kind of slowed me down a little bit," he said of the potentially deadly blood clots, which typically form — often in bedridden surgery patients — when there is damage to the lining of a blood vessel. "But I'm fine otherwise."

Staying in the house for five weeks, Sloan said, was the most frustrating part of the whole ordeal.

"(Wife) Tammy's wonderful and everything. So is (stepson) Rhett. But they certainly got tired of me being there," he joked. "So I was glad to get out."

HE SAID IT: Sloan, on the Jazz's decision last Friday to pick up 7-foot-1 reserve center Kyrylo Fesenko's $870,000 salary for next season: "We just expect him to play. You know, big guys are hard to come by. He's got to, obviously, work harder and make himself better. But we need big people. We're not very long. You see the teams that played in the playoffs: They're long. And if you want to try to get to those spots, you need some size."

HE WROTE IT: Longtime NBA writer Sam Smith, on Bulls.com: "I've talked to a number of NBA executives about (prospective free agent Carlos) Boozer and several seemed to wonder why you'd make a huge financial commitment in this era to a player who missed maybe 40 percent of the games under his big deal with the Jazz and who made the Olympic team and was hardly played despite his college coach (Duke's Mike Krzyzewski) being the team coach."

HE WROTE IT II: Also from Smith, on the same Web site: "I wouldn't be surprised if the guys the (Detroit) Pistons pursue are the (New York) Knicks' David Lee and maybe Utah's Paul Millsap. (Detroit general manager) Joe Dumars' history is to pursue less coveted or smaller name guys like when he got Chauncey Billups for an exception deal, Ben Wallace when nobody knew who he was and Rasheed Wallace when no one wanted him."

MILLSAP TO VEGAS: Speaking of Millsap, the Jazz's restricted free agent power forward is expected to join starting shooting guard Ronnie Brewer and assistant coach Tyrone Corbin at next month's USA Basketball mini-camp in Las Vegas.

Millsap and Brewer will be among 24 youngsters taking part in the July 22-25 camp, which is being held to help identify and assess candidates for future Team USA senior national clubs — including ones that will play next year at FIBA World Championships in Turkey and in the 2012 London Olympic Games. Others expected to take part include Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant, Portland's Greg Oden, Chicago's Derrick Rose, Memphis' O.J. Mayo, New York's David Lee and projected 2009 No. 1 overall draft choice Blake Griffin of the University of Oklahoma.

Corbin will assist the camp's head coach, Toronto Raptors head coach Jay Triano.

email: tbuckley@desnews.com