Utah Jazz: Okur back working out before likely opt-out

After a lengthy break to rest his severely strained hamstring, Jazz center Mehmet Okur is working out again — and talking, it seems, as if he plans on being with the Jazz again next season.

"My goal is to be in the best shape of my career when the preseason camp starts," Okur is quoted as saying on his personal Web site, Memo13.com.

"We (the Jazz) had a tough season, an unlucky season with so many different injuries and problems," Okur added. "However, a couple of years ago we had another season filled with injuries and then we came back to go all the way to the Western (Conference) finals."

The Jazz, meanwhile, are believed to be preparing a potential multiyear contract offer to Okur should he opt — as expected — out of the final season of his current contract.

Okur is slated to make $9 million next season — a $500,000 raise from the past season.

The one-time NBA All-Star, however, would become an unrestricted free agent if he were to opt out by the league's June 30 deadline for doing so.

"Right now I feel good," Okur said on his site. "No pain, no pulling feeling, nothing out of the ordinary. I have just started and I have a long summer ahead of me to get to the position of where I will be fully ready."

Okur missed the first three games of the Jazz's first-round playoff series against the Los Angeles, and played — albeit at much less than 100 percent — in the last two.

After returning shortly afterward to his native Turkey, he said he followed a doctor's advice to give the damaged muscle a break.

"He felt it was best to rest it until full recovery," Okur said. "I have been watching what I eat, doing some walking, but being careful so not to strain it before full recovery."

Okur — who recently celebrated his 30th birthday — is working with his personal trainer, Goran Zufar, in Turkey.

"We will increase the intensity of the practices in time," Okur said.

"Everybody that I spoke with who has had experience with a severe hamstring injury said that it is an injury that takes time to heal properly," he added. "They said that also it could be sneaky in that it can fool you sometimes. We are being very careful and not taking any risks."

MOCK UPDATES: After the league's deadline for underclassmen and underage internationals to withdraw from NBA Draft consideration passed on Monday, a few Internet sites updated their mock drafts.