Lat night the NBA season officially ended for the Utah Jazz, although it was really over when they beat the Nuggets and were destined to go against the Lakers. And even though I knew it was all over I still stubbornly held to my hope that something fantastic would happen, like Carlos Boozer getting taller, faster and having a heart.

Or the Jazz revealing that their efforts to clone Karl Malone and John Stockton were successful and the statues out front were actually incubators for these clones. While they make this announcement they show video of these NBA iron men in their cloned form breaking free their bronze prisons ready to take the floor to mop up the floor with the current version of the NBA that is not equipped to deal with the physical side of the game the bring and thus surrender to their superior will…

Or Kobe hits his head so hard he forgets where he is and starts launching shots at the wrong basket…

None of this happened and even though Deron Williams is as good as it gets for a point guard there is something missing around him. I would say that the Jazz I grew up watching that featured John and Karl would beat up on the Jazz team of today just because they always had a true 1-2 punch and whether it was Jeff Hornaceck or Jeff Malone there was alway a third option that was more reliable than any third option on the team now.

You see it may be a good thing that on any given night anyone on the team can step up and push the team over the top to a win, but that also means that on a given night you have no idea who to rely on, well unless that person’s name is Deron Williams, the only consistent threat on the team. And although Deron will have bad nights you can write those off as just that, a bad night. If Carlos Boozer or Paul Milsap has a quiet night that is just that it wasn’t his night to be on. This team needs at least 2 more players that has 72 consistently good nights a year and only 10 write-off nights. Maybe I am being hard on these guys, but that is my right as a fan since I don’t get paid millions to play basketball and I have played most of my life and understand the game well enough I know that if you really really really want to push things you can and become more consistant and that is lacking from this team. They may have bought into Jerry Sloans system and make the extra pass, but what happens when you do everything right and the guy with the best shot just misses?

All there is now is to see what happens in the off season. I don’t know what will happen. Most of me wants to see Carlos Boozer playing somewhere else and all of me does if they can use him to get better in some what, not that that is likely.

For the most part the season was about what I expected, a pretty good team that wasn’t able to get past the Lakers, and the  team as currently constituted probably won’t ever be able to do that, it needs more height and athleticisim, but what NBA team doesn’t want that?

Deron will be Deron, but until he gets a couple of other guys around him that are better second and third options than Carlos Boozer and Memo/Andrei/CJ/Wesley Mathews this team will be a second-round-and-out team. Deron by himself is good enough to get a team to be that but you get a true big man and some better shooters around him and this team could really be good…

Oh well it’s not in my hands I just have to watch and hope things go the right way.