Who will be the pleasant surprise this year?

Before last season, not many people expect Brewer could take up the starting SG role for the whole season and he did impress us by his athleticism of running backdoor and attacking the rim constantly.

So, who will give us a surprise this season? Two names appear in my head.

Mehmet Okur

“Okur? He always gave us surprise by his buzzer beater in the past two seasons, didn’t he? What more surprise we can get?”

Well…No one will doubt Okur’s shooting ability, and his coolness in handling the clutch shot, we never see him performing consistently well. Ironically, he is somewhat consistently inconsistent.

It seems that he determined to bring himself into aother level (perhaps also to raise his negotiability in the coming summer?). He decided not to play for Turkey National Team. He came back from his own country one month before the start of the traninig camp to kick start his physical training. He is in great shape now (I sort of know when I saw he ran the floor in the first preseason game vs Lakers).

No wonder Sloan said some great things about him – “That's what you hope everybody does: get in great shape, so they can run up and down the floor."

Let’s see how well he plays this year. To me, two words are enough – “Consistently Good”.

Kyle Korver

The press always blah…blah…blah… about Jazz’s winning record since Korver joined mid last season. Agree his addition to the team did give Jazz some positive impact but the improving record is not entirely because of him, perhaps 25% (?) from my humble opinion.

Well, his killer skills 3-point percentage was below 40% last year, which is way off from his standard. At the end of the day, time is needed to learn how the team runs and get into the system.

After half a year, we see progress. His shooting % in the three preseason games is well above 50% and he is actually the scoring leader so far. I am not say these numbers mean everything, especially in the not-so-competitive preseason, we do have every chance to see a even better, sharper-shooting Korver this season.

Quote of the Day, by Coach Sloan, which shows his black humour.

"That's the only thing I have a problem with. Sometimes we get in a big hurry to bury the other team. The three-point shot only counts three, it doesn't count 20."