Look for the Jazz to move up the chart

What are we waiting for?

As Max said in "Where the Wild Things Are": "Let the wild rumpus start!"

The Jazz's 82-game rumpus begins tonight in Denver, and if there's one thing you can say about them, it's that they're as familiar as a beloved kids' book. After all those years of Stockton and Malone, the new Jazz are becoming downright entrenched, too. They have the same shifty-bumpy point guard as they've had for the last few years. Same long-distance center. Same double-threat power forward.

And Andrei Kirilenko may be wearing a new haircut, and 20 badly needed pounds, but it's still unmistakably him.

Did we mention Jerry Sloan is back for a 22nd semi-cranky season?

So this is what you have: The same basic team that finished eighth in the West last year. But it's also largely the same bunch that finished second in the Western Conference playoffs in 2007.

"The last three years we lost (in the playoffs) to the NBA champion twice and the runner-up once. So the teams we lost to were either the best team in the world or the second-best team in the world," said Jazz G.M. Kevin O'Connor.

So you decide.

Is this a team that could end up in the conference finals again, or are Jazz officials just putting lipstick on a pig?

I'm siding with the former.

But what do I know? I thought Greg Norman and Chrissy Evert were a forever deal.

Still, I'm figuring the Jazz have weathered the worst of their problems. They won 48 games last year with a ragtag cast that looked like the crew of the Black Pearl. If they just have a normal number of injuries — which at this point is a significant "if" — they'll be fine. That's because they work. Anyone can get his team ready for big games. But nobody gets his teams ready to play an oinker against Sacramento or Washington better than Jerry Sloan.

"This is still a young team," Sloan said. "It takes sometimes some ups and downs to teach them whether or not it's worth it. It's a tough business."

And Sloan is a tough coach.