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One word characterizes the Jazz at the start of their new season. It's a surprising word, given the team's 57 losses last year. But the veterans are giving it a test drive, and the rookies, too, the returnees and the newcomers. Check back with us in March, and we'll update everyone on the word's staying power.

Confident/Confidence.

It's an important thing to be/have in pro sports because, without it, you're dead. With it, you have a shot at fulfilling your potential. And that's what the existential Jazz are trying to do this season: Be as good as they can be in an absurdly difficult league. They know it. Everybody knows it. Title contention is on the far side of the mountain. As Jazz leadership euphemistically says, "We don't want to skip any steps in the process."

Translation: "We're going to get our heads kicked in some nights, so don't give up on us."

More importantly, to put the be in the being, the Jazz can't give up on themselves. They must find meaning in a sometimes seemingly meaningless world.

That's where the word comes into play.

Not just on the first day of training camp, or on opening night in late October, but during those dark dates in February, in the third game of a four-games-in-five-nights road swing through the Midwest, when their bodies hurt and their minds are weary and their egos are bruised and they wonder, like Jerry Sloan so infamously used to, whether they will ever win another game. Ever.

Derrick Favors has been through all that.

That's why his confidence is so notable now, not just in himself, but in his new coaches and teammates.

Not only did Favors say he could average 20 and 10 this season, he predicted that he will also get at least 10 assists in a single game and average somewhere between two and three.

"That's reasonable," he said. "… That's what I'm aiming for."

And then he pointed at Enes Kanter and said Kanter was one of the reasons he knew he could get 10 assists, because his fellow big was going to knock down a slew of open perimeter shots, compliments of his own largesse. We're talking about the same combination that at times last season could barely walk across the same floor at the same time without tripping over one another and face-planting into the hardwood.

"When I rotate, I'm going to be looking for Enes," Favors said.

Said Kanter: "I've been working on my corner 3s. I'm excited."

They aren't alone.

Gordon Hayward, who at the end of last season acted like a puppy who had had his head dunked in defeat too many times, who needed a life raft to stay afloat, apparently found some buoyancy in the offseason, maybe on account of his new max contract. His spirits are soaring now, in no small measure to a new coach and a new scheme.

"Coach Quin is setting something up for us as players where we can be successful," he said. "We've got a lot of guys who can get out in the open court and make things happen. That's probably what a lot of us do best. We're really going to try to push the ball, get some more pace so we don't have to come down in the half-court against teams that have played together and they know how to stop people. He's going to allow us to play a little more open, to be the players we are."

Asked what message he had for Jazz fans who suffered alongside him last season, Hayward answered: "I'm excited to be back here. I'm happy that I'm here. I'm here and I'm here to stay. I'll lead us to the place we need to go."

Whoa. Wow.

The rookies are fired up, too, because … why wouldn't they be? They haven't had their competitive psyches squashed by the best basketball players on the best basketball teams in the best basketball league on the planet, night in Cleveland after night in Chicago after night in Indy after night in Memphis.

But Dante Exum and Rodney Hood said they are ready for the climb.

"Both me and Rodney are competitors," Exum said. "We want to be the best players we can be — right now. We're coming in every day, trying to get better. So, by opening night, we're ready. It's not so much about being patient. … It's about fine-tuning everything and getting ready."

Said Hood: "We're rookies, you're supposed to make mistakes. We just have to go out there and play with a clean mindset and do our best."

Hood said he believes the biggest challenges he'll face in his first year are staying focused and strong: "The amount of games. Bringing it every single night."

Exum's biggest challenge: "Playing against grown men."

"It's a great opportunity for us," Hood said. "We just want to learn."

They'll have to.

Learn to play hard in the glow of victory and, more often, in the shadow of defeat, to keep hope alive in the dark nights of February.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM/1280 and 960 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.