It's the NBA's annual October exercise of trying not to go through the motions. Most starters play no more than two quarters. The greatest hope is for a close game late in the fourth quarter to evaluate young players on the roster.
The Jazz will play seven preseason games - highlighted by a homecoming for Deron Williams at the University of Illinois on Friday - but general manager Kevin O'Connor considers the month more than just a necessary evil.
"You just can't go out and go from 0 to 60," O'Connor said. "You build up your time on the court. You want to be in a situation where you evaluate some of the offenses and some of the defenses that you think might work that maybe don't."
"Nobody likes preseason," added Andrei Kirilenko, "but in my opinion we need it because it's really only time that we can practice something on the floor with the opportunity to make a mistake."
After only two games, though, Williams said he was ready for the regular season to get started. Carlos Boozer was amazed when he talked to Jazz coach Jerry Sloan and learned teams used to play 15 preseason games in Sloan's days.
"You just kind of get in the flow, get the rhythm back," said Williams, who is playing in only the first and third quarters. "I'm not being too aggressive right now. I'll have time to do that."
Nobody remembers that the Jazz finished 4-3 last preseason - their final game was canceled because of wildfires in San Diego - but there was a surprising correlation between preseason and regular season results around the league.
Of the NBA's 30 teams, 20 that had either a winning or losing preseason went on to finish the same way in the regular season. Miami lost all seven of its exhibition games and finished with the league's worst regular-season record at 15-67.
Atlanta was a league-best 7-1 in the preseason and went on to end the league's longest playoff drought, though the Hawks finished with a losing record overall.
Out of their last 20 full preseasons, the Jazz 16 times have posted a winning record and gone on to a winning regular season. The only time a winning preseason has been followed by a losing regular season was with the 26-56 season in 2004-05.
"You can't really judge anything right now," Williams said. "We're trying different lineups, trying different things. We've got people out here that are not going to be on the team. It's preseason."
The Jazz handle a couple of things differently in the preseason. For one, they do not go over a scouting report on the opposing team until the final three or four games. Sloan also has found minutes for 16 and 15 players (no easy task) in the two games so far.
"It always matters," Sloan said of the preseason, "because there's a lot of things that we have to try to get better at."
Sloan has experimented with small lineups, pairing Brevin Knight and Ronnie Price in the backcourt, as well as bringing Kirilenko off the bench. He also will use all seven games to hammer home the importance of defensive accountability this season.
Boozer said he wished the preseason could be shortened to four games. Kyle Korver, who played a preseason game last October with Philadelphia at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut, added that the month was beneficial.
"This is the time where you kind of take all the things that you worked on during the summer and take them into your game now," Korver said.
Around the league, Phoenix and Denver will play the league's first-ever outdoor game in Indian Wells, Calif., tonight. Four teams are heading to Europe and another two to China. The Oklahoma City Thunder played their first game in franchise history in Billings, Mont.
The Jazz must travel for five of seven preseason games, having concluded that fans who would attend a game in Ogden, Provo or Logan are the same who already make the trip to EnergySolutions Arena.
O'Connor, meanwhile, emphasized one point about the preseason: "Each game may be used for a different thing, but the bottom line especially is we're trying to win the game."
rsiler@sltrib.com
