The inexperience on the Jazz's roster makes an out-of-town training camp more desirable, the Jazz assistant said Tuesday, the first day of workouts for the 2005-06 season. Eliminating as many distractions as possible helps the young players focus, he said.

"The concepts you teach them in the morning, maybe they have a little more chance to hold on to them in the evening," Johnson said. "You can just concentrate a little more if basketball is all you have to worry about."

When the Jazz built their practice facility in Salt Lake, Jerry Sloan and Kevin O'Connor intended to hold training camp there most years, and did so in 2003. But they changed their mind last summer, when the roster lost most of its veterans.

"You want to have two-a-days without having the players worrying about going home in between, worrying about other things," said O'Connor, the Jazz's senior vice president of basketball operations. "If we have everybody back a year from now, we might not necessarily do it."

The Jazz trained in St. George last season, and, this year, are back in Boise, where they trained several times in the 1990s. "There's some synergy here, in that Larry [Miller, the Jazz owner] has some [car] dealerships here," O'Connor said. "But more than anything, the facilities here enable us to have a great floor to practice on, a hotel that's very accommodating. We have the ability to fly up quickly. It's an NBA-level feel. It's major league."

Willing students

When Sloan talked Tuesday, the Jazz listened. It's only the first day of training camp, but that's a good sign, the coach said.

"It went really well. I was really pleased," Sloan said after conducting the first workout of his 18th season as Jazz coach. "The biggest thing was, they were receptive. As a coach, that's all you can ask."

The first workout was limited to drills, conditioning and introducing the initial concepts of the team's offense. The league's agreement with the players' union stipulates that anything involving "contact," such as scrimmages or one-on-one drills, be limited to one practice a day, so Sloan saved it for the evening session of his two-a-day workouts.

Still, it was a worthwhile session, he said. "They listened. They seemed to get it," Sloan said. "They understood what we were telling them, which is important."

Briefly

Matt Harpring, rehabbing his surgically repaired right knee, took part in the morning session, but spent the evening session limited to conditioning drills. . . . Harpring's wife, Amanda, is expecting the couple's first child, a son, in about seven weeks. . . . Harpring wasn't the only Jazz employee to undergo knee surgery this summer. Trainer Gary Briggs and broadcaster Rod Hundley each had a knee replaced with an artificial joint, but both are back on the job. . . . One other summertime injury: Jarron Collins, enjoying his Caribbean honeymoon a year after getting married, came home with a severe sunburn. "I was under the impression I didn't burn," Collins said. "Apparently, I was wrong."

pmiller@sltrib.com